


Histories of the Happy Band

by lizwas



Category: Gossip Girl (TV 2007)
Genre: Blair fell first, F/F, F/M, Greta Gerwig my beloved, Happy endings abound, I do not vibe with period-typical homophobia so I’ve chosen to (mostly) ignore it, Nobody Dies, but only as a plot device, chuck exists, it's loving the Humphrey's hours, little women au, period drama
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-15
Updated: 2021-03-21
Packaged: 2021-03-23 23:42:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 32,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30063366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lizwas/pseuds/lizwas
Summary: A Gossip Girl / Little Women AU."It was a lonely thing, to hear from your family that you were loved, but never feel that you were understood.Dan swears, with their pinkies interlocked, that he will always try to do both, and she promises the same to him."
Relationships: Dan Humphrey/Blair Waldorf, Eric/happiness, Jenny/happiness, Minor or Background Relationship(s), Nate Archibald/Serena van der Woodsen, Rufus Humphrey/Lily van der Woodsen, Vanessa Abrams & Blair Waldorf, Vanessa Abrams & Dan Humphrey, Vanessa Abrams/Olivia Burke, some onesided Dan/Vanessa and Vanessa/Serena, the Humphreys & everyone
Comments: 17
Kudos: 21





	1. Our club unbroken be

**Author's Note:**

> A few weeks ago, I sent Ivy (AKA ivermectin AKA bisexualdanhumphrey) an ask on tumblr about Dan and Vanessa's friendship reminding me of Jo & Laurie in Little Women and I clowned myself into writing this au. Little Women has been a very special story to me, and so this just kind of fell out of me. So this is bits from GG, the LW opera libretto, and Greta Gerwig's screenplay all smushed together into one fic. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy!
> 
> (PS, a shoutout to Nads (mysteriesofloves) for allowing me to yell in her dms about this au <3)

This dance is supposedly the best way to get to know young people here in Concord, but Vanessa feels woefully out of place. 

Nelly had suggested they come. She did seem to be a sweet girl, if a little shy, so Vanessa thought they would get on nicely as roommates in the Constance Billiards School for Girls dormitory. 

It had been years since Vanessa had been to Concord, but when the opportunity to return to go to school had come up, she had leapt at the chance. If only her parents had been more understanding. Arlo and Gabriela Abrams had moved their family to a commune in Vermont when Vanessa was 10 years old, and while the transcendentalist life suited her parents well, Vanessa learned as she grew up that that kind of living wasn’t for her. 

But here, in this ballroom that was somehow simultaneously stuffy and drafty, she thinks that she may not belong here either. 

She had hoped (perhaps foolishly) that she might run into her old childhood friend, Daniel, at this party, but she didn’t see him in the crowd. She wonders if she would even recognize him if she did, it had been six years since she saw him last. 

Vanessa’s in the middle of her reverie when she realizes that she’d unwittingly made eye contact with a young man across the room, and he was now walking towards her. 

She hastily makes a retreat, before she’s forced into a conversation, or worse, a dance. She ducks through a door into a small parlor, and silently curses her terrible luck that she's chosen a hiding place that’s already occupied. 

“Oh, sorry!”’she blurts out. “I didn’t realize anyone was in here.”

The current occupant is a young woman who looks to be Vanessa’s age. She looks like the very picture of beauty: blonde hair that seems to shimmer in the firelight, blue eyes accentuated by the deep blue of her gown (Vanessa suddenly feels very plain in her simple dove gray frock)—which leaves Vanessa very confused as to why she would hide in here. Surely this girl doesn’t worry about suitors and making conversation?

The girl smiles, making her glow even prettier in the low light of the parlor. “That’s alright. I wouldn’t mind some company, to be honest.”

Vanessa is still standing awkwardly in the doorway, wondering if it would be less awkward to break free now or stay. The girl seems to sense her hesitation, and waves her in, unabashedly friendly. So, Vanessa moves in tentatively, and perches on the chair across from where the girl is seated. 

“I’m Serena,” she says, extending her hand out for a shake like they were proper gentlemen, “Serena Van der Woodsen.”

Bemused, Vanessa takes her hand and shakes it, “Vanessa Abrams.” 

Serena grins, “Pleasure to meet you, Vanessa Abrams. Are you from Concord? I don’t believe I’ve seen you around before.”

“I am, or, I was, but I have been away for a while.” 

Serena smiles kindly in understanding. “Me too. This is the first gathering since I’ve been back. My friend, Blair, she more or less bullied me into it.” 

Vanessa’s eyebrows raise, “Sounds like quite the friend.”

The other girl tilts her head, looking at Vanessa curiously. “Sorry! No offense meant,” Vanessa apologizes with a wince, “I just - if you’re here with a friend then why are you hiding away?”

Serena waves her apology aside with a laugh, “No offense taken. Blair can be rather imperious,” she says playfully, “and you’re right, I am hiding away, but the reason is a little embarrassing.”

Vanessa waits. 

Serena leans in and says secretively, “I have a scorch mark on the back of my dress, I didn’t notice it until we were on our way, and Blair insisted that I do my best to hide it to save myself—and her— from looking ridiculous.” She stands and flips her skirt around to show Vanessa, and sure enough, there’s a tell-tale mark marring the fabric. 

Vanessa bites her lip until she sees the mirth in Serena’s eyes. They both burst into laughter, and Serena has to catch her breath until she can further explain.

“My sister—she’s quite the little seamstress—didn’t have time to fix it, and Mother refused to replace it on principle. My brother has the same habit as me you see, of standing in front of the fireplace, so I think she is rather fed up with us.”

“Well then you should make a fine matched set.”

Serena laughs again, and it feels like sunlight bursting through the clouds. “We would, but he unfortunately is not here tonight. Dan would much prefer scribbling in the attic to squiring me to yet another town dance. Which is a shame, I could really use a fun dance partner, most everyone here is frightfully dull.”

Vanessa thinks that Serena’s brother sounds an awful lot like her Dan, but it’s probably a coincidence. “I’ll be your dance partner,” she offers, “and I think I have a way that we can get away with it.” 

Serena’s face lights up, and Vanessa’s heart skips a beat. 

The house hosting this gathering has a marvelous wrap-around porch, perfect for two young ladies to dance as freely as they wish. And with the party going on just inside, they have the luxury of the music from the orchestra to accompany them. 

When the orchestra strikes up a new tune, the girls curtsy to each other, and then they’re off. 

They pay no mind to any proper steps, and just move as the music dictates they must, prancing and spinning and jumping as wildly as they please until they’re both breathless with laughter. 

Their dancing quickly evolves into a game, seeing how absurdly they can move in between the windows, and avoid discovery from the attendees in the stuffy ballroom. 

In the space of just a few sets Serena and Vanessa become co-conspirators, friends, and Vanessa cannot remember the last time she’d laughed so much. 

Their fun, though, is cut short when, on a twirling pass down the length of the porch, Serena’s heel catches on a gap in the floorboards, sending her sprawling. 

“Christopher Columbus!” Vanessa exclaims, rushing to her side, “Are you alright?”

Serena blinks, looking bewildered, as if she couldn’t quite believe she found herself on the ground like this. “I think so?”

Vanessa attempts to help her up, but Serena stumbles, and yelps as soon as she tries to put any weight on her left foot. 

“Oh fiddlesticks,” Vanessa says, and hears Serena make a noise of amusement at the word, “We should get you inside,” she throws Serena’s arm over her shoulder, “is there anyone I can get for you?”

Serena glances over through the window closest to them, and her eyes light up in recognition. She limps over—Vanessa doing her best to keep up and support the girl—and raps on the glass until she catches the attention of a petite brown-haired girl. 

The two—Serena and the elegantly dressed brunette inside—converse entirely with looks and hand signals until the brunette nods sharply to her right. Vanessa and Serena follow the motion, and spot a pair of French doors. They make their way to them, and just as they approach, the doors fly open, and there stands Serena’s friend, hands on her hips. 

“My goodness, S, what in the world have you done to yourself?”

“Vanessa and I were dancing on the porch, and I tripped and twisted my ankle.”

“Who’s _Vanessa_?” the brunette asks. 

“Hello!” Vanessa gives a little half-hearted wave. 

The other girl’s eyes sweep over her, her expression wholly unimpressed. She then proceeds to ignore Vanessa entirely, and waves them in a weary “Come along inside, S.”

The doors they had walked through were connected to another side parlor off from the main party, Vanessa leads Serena in and helps her over to the sofa, so that she may get off her feet. Vanessa, unsure of what to do with herself, but reluctant to leave Serena with this spitfire of a girl, goes to sit on the ottoman next to her new friend. 

“I know it’s early, Blair, but would you call the carriage?”

Blair clucks her tongue at her friend's state, then sighs, “We had to share with Mother tonight, remember? Vanya won’t be around for another hour and a half at _least_.”

“My brother then,” Serena proposes, “he could pick us up and then drive you home. Or,” she amends when Blair makes a little noise of revulsion, “you could wait there for Vanya to pick you up.”

Blair stands there with her arms crossed and purses her lips, considering. 

“Please, B,” Serena pleas good-naturedly, “have some pity on a fallen soldier.”

Blair lets out a long-suffering sigh, with the air of a girl who’s helped her friend through more than one scrape like this. “Fine, I’ll send for Humphrey,” she says briskly before leaving the parlor.

Vanessa’s ears perk up, “Humphrey?”

Serena nods, “My brother Dan. Blair only refers to him by surname.”

“Dan _Humphrey_ is your brother?” Vanessa does a poor job of containing her surprise. 

“Yes,” Serena confirms, “Well, step-brother,” she qualifies with a tilt of her head, “do you know him?”

Vanessa nods, and says a little wistfully, “We were friends, once.”

“Oh!” Serena exclaims, slapping a hand to her forehead, “Of course, you’re _that_ Vanessa! Gosh, I’m such a ninny.”

Vanessa frowns in confusion. 

“Of course, Dan’s talked of you,” Serena explains, “Jenny and Rufus too, but they didn’t know you were coming back to Concord.”

Vanessa shrugs, “I guess it’s kind of a surprise,” she says sheepishly.

“Oh,” Serena claps her hands together, “Dan will be so pleased to see you, I know it.”

Vanessa smiles, Serena’s enthusiasm was certainly infectious. “I hope so. So while we wait, tell me how Dan became your stepbrother.”

Serena launches into the story eagerly. Her mother, Lily Humphrey née Van der Woodsen née Rhodes, grew up in a grand house just outside of Concord. While she was a girl, she fell in love with a young musician, but circumstance kept them apart. Lily married a doctor, only to be tragically widowed 4 years later, with two young children. Then, by some serendipitous miracle, Lily met the musician again, also tragically widowed, with two children of his own. They fell in love again, remarried, and now they all live together as one big family. 

Vanessa gets the sense that Serena is quite the romantic. 

“That is a pretty good story,” she admits. 

Serena beams. “Truthfully, I cannot really remember a time when Dan and Jenny haven’t felt like family. I’m so grateful to have them, and my little brother Eric, he really depends on them too.”

“That sounds like the Humphreys I know,” Vanessa muses, nostalgic. 

Serena’s head perks up, “I think I hear them coming.”

Vanessa listens carefully, and sure enough, she can hear two voices approaching, one she recognizes as Serena’s abrasive friend, high-pitched and, in Vanessa’s opinion, a little bit shrill. The second is much lower, deep and resonant in comparison to the one it is conversing with, though maybe arguing would be a better word. 

The door opens to Blair, and the young man following her. His eyes sweep briefly over Serena, then land on Vanessa. 

“Abrams, is that you?”

She shouldn’t have worried, she would know him anywhere. 

“Fancy meeting you here, Humphrey,” she says with a mile wide grin. 

He steps forward, then catches her in a hug, holding her so tightly that her feet lift off the floor. She lets out a squeal of delight, and feels Dan—her Dan’s laugh rumble in her ear. 

Blair exaggeratedly clears her throat, and Dan sets Vanessa down, still smiling wide. 

“Serena,” he says, finally addressing his stepsister, “this is my - this is Vanessa Abrams. She’s an old friend.”

Serena nods, lips pursed in an amused smile. “Yes, Vanessa and I are acquainted.”

Blair huffs, crossing her arms. “Miss _Abrams_ is the reason your sister is injured, Humphrey.”

“That’s not true and you know it, B,” Serena admonishes her, “I just twisted my ankle dancing, is all.” 

“It could happen to anyone,” Vanessa says defensively.

Dan steps forward and kneels next to his sister to inspect the damage. “Speak for yourself, this would never happen to me,” Dan jokes, “I have lovely small feet, the best in the family.”

Serena and Vanessa both laugh, while Blair turns away in an exasperated huff. 

Vanessa’s eyes flit to the girl, taken aback by her haughtiness. 

“Oh don’t mind Waldorf,” Dan assures her from over his shoulder, “I never do.”

Serena’s eyes meet Vanessa’s, and she casts her eyes skyward and shrugs. Vanessa has to bite back a laugh. 

“I think it just needs rest, S,” Dan diagnoses, “now do you think you can walk out, or does Vanessa need to carry you over her shoulder?”

Serena snorts, “I think I can manage.”

Dan does have to support her a bit, slinging an arm around her waist while hers goes over his shoulder, but Serena seems reasonably mobile. They’re on their way out, Blair tutting fretfully behind them, when Vanessa’s hit with a strong desire for them to stay, injured ankle or no. 

“You’re coming with us, right V?” Serena calls out behind her. Vanessa smiles, and follows the three out of the party to the waiting carriage. 

* * *

Vanessa elects to sit up front with Dan as he drives, apprehensive of sharing such a small confined space with Blair Waldorf. They chat easily, as comfortable in each other’s company as they had ever been. She briefly catches him up on the details of her return to Concord, and he gives her his own abridged version of Serena’s tale, about his father’s marriage and his stepmother’s family. He’s just started humorously telling her of Cece, his step-grandmother (“her heart pumps secrets and gin”), when he guides the two horses to turn and go up the drive to a huge house. It’s not quite as grand as some of the other homes Vanessa knows exist in Concord, but it is much larger than the cozy clapboard she remembers fondly from her childhood. 

Her jaw falls open. “This is your _house_?” she asks, unable to stop the incredulity from coloring her tone. 

Dan chuckles sheepishly beside her. “Welcome to Rosewood, Abrams.”

He gently coaxes the horses to a stop in front of the door, as close as he can manage to save his sister the distance, then he clambers down from the bench, offering Vanessa his hand as she follows him down. 

The carriage door pops open seemingly of its own volition. “I could have jammed my feet through the floor and run us here faster, Humphrey,” Blair grumbles. 

“I’ll remember that for next time,” he says wryly, still lending the girl his arm, which she begrudgingly takes.

Serena emerges next, Dan carefully lifting her out of the carriage so as to not disturb her ankle. “Don’t worry about Blair,” she whispers to Vanessa, “she’s just upset that my clumsiness interrupted her dance with Mr. Forrester.” 

Somehow Vanessa doubts that, but has no time to respond, because then they enter the house, and all havoc breaks loose. 

A chorus of voices erupt around them.

“Oh, Mr. Humphrey, you’re back”

“Serena, what happened?”

“S! How was the party?”

“Why did you have to send for Dan?”

“Why didn’t Dan bother to go in the first place?”

Dan calls out over them goodnaturedly, “Out of our way, fallen soldier!” as he carries Serena over to a nearby settee. Vanessa follows, because she’s unsure of what else to do. 

She manages to work out that the voices tumbling over each belong to three different people, a redheaded woman, perhaps a decade older than Vanessa, a boy, thin and pale and dark haired, who she assumes is Serena’s brother, and a spritely blonde girl that Vanessa can only imagine is Jenny. 

“Oh, Serena, darling, what trouble have you gotten in now?” another voice sounds, and Vanessa looks up to see it belongs to a beautiful middle-aged woman, her blonde hair and delicate features mean that she must be Serena’s mother.

“It’s only a twisted ankle, Lily,” Blair assures her. “I only sent for Dan because Serena insisted and Vanya is out driving my mother for at least another hour.”

“Oh, and Lily,” Dan chimes in, “we ran into an old friend. This is Vanessa Abrams.”

“I knew it!” Jenny squeals with joy and throws her arms around Vanessa’s neck in a hug, “It’s so good to see you!”

Vanessa would respond, but Jenny’s grip is too tight.

“Let her _breathe_ , Jen,” Dan chides.

“Oh I don’t mind,” Vanessa manages to say, wrapping her arms around Jenny and returning the girl’s embrace. 

“Welcome, Vanessa,” Lily says warmly, once Jenny releases her, “please make yourself at home. We’re a little bit hectic here. Larissa and I,” she gestures to the maid, “were doing some baking while the night was quiet but it seems it was briefly lived.” She steps forward to clasp Vanessa’s hand, “I know Rufus will also be happy to hear you’ve returned.”

“Is Mr. Humphrey here?” Vanessa asks. 

“Oh no,” Lily answers. “Rufus is away on business. Fortunately for us, we have Daniel to be the man of the house.” 

Dan tenses ever so slightly. 

“Now, I think all of this commotion warrants a cup of tea,” Lily decrees. “Larissa?” The maid nods, and the two women head off in the direction of the kitchen. 

Serena, Eric, and Jenny turn to him all in unison and mouth “ _Daniel_.” He screws his face up in response, but Vanessa sees his shoulders relax. 

“I’ll go get something for that foot, S,” he says before leaving the room.

She takes a seat next to Serena, and turns to ask her quietly, “What business, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“Oh, he’s on an extended tour in Europe,” Serena explains unaffectedly, “he’s not due back for another month. Ooh! But,” she adds, patting Vanessa’s arm in excitement, “your arrival definitely warrants a telegram.”

“I feel honored,” she replies. 

“You should!” Serena assures her with a smile. Vanessa is sure she has never met anyone so disarmingly pretty. 

Jenny takes their pause as an invitation to jump into the conversation, eagerly searching for information about the party, while also trying to fill Vanessa in on the minutiae of the Humphrey family. She coaxes Eric forward by the hand to introduce him, and he greets her with a shy grin. 

Eric settles on the floor close to his elder sister, and he also asks after the night’s entertainment, wanting to know about the music. Serena tells him, while Blair—now enthroned in the armchair closest to Serena—graciously gives Jenny a rundown of the evening (mostly about what the ladies were wearing), preening under the younger girl’s attention. There is so much talking going on around her that it’s all Vanessa can do to keep up with the conversations flowing over each other. 

Dan returns into the drawing room, with a small bundle in his hand. “Here, S,” he says, kneeling on the floor across from his stepbrother, and placing the bundle directly on Serena’s ankle. 

“That’s cold!” she hisses, and shoots her brother a look of perturbation. 

“It’s _ice_ , it’s supposed to be,” he tells her firmly, “Keep it there, it’ll help the swelling.” Vanessa’s eyebrows quirk up. Ice in September? The Humphreys had become wealthy indeed. 

She’s little time to think on it though, for Jenny pipes up eagerly, “Dan, you should have Vanessa join our play! For the parish fairytale?”

“Of course, V, you should join us!” Serena says eagerly. 

“Play?”

“Yeah, it’s just something for the children in town. Snow White. I wrote it,” he admits shyly. “I’d love for you to join us, but only if you want to.”

“Sounds splendid,” Vanessa assures him with a pat on the shoulder. 

“We don’t have any parts left to cast, in case you’ve forgotten, Humphrey,” Blair says primly. 

He shoots her a flat look before continuing, “I need you for a much more important job, V, artistic director. Of course, Blair is playing the evil queen, so she doesn’t need much direction.”

Blair sticks her tongue out at him.

“Now, children,” Serena admonishes, giving her best impression of her mother. 

As if on cue, Lily and Larissa reenter, tea trays in hand. 

“Oh, Blair,” Lily calls, “Vanya is here with the carriage to bring you home.”

Blair bounces up. “Very well. Thank you, Lily. And, S, do try to refrain from any disasters until I see you next.”

“I’ll do my best,” the blonde answers drily. 

Blair bids her friend farewell with a kiss on the cheek and breezes out of the room. 

“If it’s that late, I should probably be going as well,” Vanessa says reluctantly. 

“You don’t mean to walk, do you, dear?” Lily asks, concerned. “At least let Daniel drive you.”

“Oh no, thank you kindly, but it’s not necessary.”

“I don’t mind,” Dan offers. 

“Really, it’s fine. I enjoy the exercise,” she says firmly, unwilling to infringe on any more hospitality. 

Lily seems unconvinced, but Dan says with good humor, “I think we had better let her go, Lily, or else the battle of wills will keep us here all night.”

“Oh very well, but do come visit us again soon, Vanessa.”

“Yes, do!” Both Serena and Jenny echo. 

Dan walks her to the front door, and bids her farewell as she readies herself for the walk to Constance. “It’s good to have you back, Abrams,” he says with a grin. 

“It’s good to be back,” she answers, matching his smile. 

As Vanessa begins her trek, she pauses at the end of the short lane, looking back up at the house. She sees the domestic bustle of a family settling in for the night, turning off lamps and blowing out candles. Then, she sees a window in the attic light up. Through the pane of glass, she sees Dan pacing, scribbling away at the pad of paper in his hand, lost in his work. Vanessa can’t help but smile at the sight. 

It’s good to be back. 

* * *

When school begins next week, Vanessa is happy to discover that Serena is in her class at Constance, too. Her friend—or more like shadow—Miss Waldorf, appears less than pleased, but it doesn’t dampen Serena’s enthusiasm, or Vanessa’s relief in knowing that she has at least one friend among the girls in her class. 

During the lunch hour, she spots Dan coming out of the doors of St. Jude’s, and she rejoices in the knowledge that she now has two friends at this new school, even if one of them is relegated to the brother school across the courtyard. 

Her first week of school passes rather quickly, it had been some years since she’d sat in classes and studied what was dictated by most teachers—her parents and the other adults at the commune had a much more inquisitive, relaxed approach to education—so Vanessa finds it a bigger adjustment than she had anticipated. 

Still, she enjoys the company of Serena and Jenny, and Dan, during the periods of time they can all meet in the courtyard. Serena insists that Vanessa come over to Rosewood on Sunday when she has the free time, and Vanessa is more than happy to accept the invitation. The Rhodes family is also apparently very influential over the school, so Miss Carr, who oversees the young ladies lodging at Constance, has no objection to Vanessa’s going. 

So, when Sunday afternoon finally arrives, Vanessa makes the short trek to Rosewood, excited to spend some time with her friends, both old and new. 

Unfortunately Blair Waldorf is also paying a call on Serena, but S directs her up to the attic to find Dan. 

“You may find him mid-story, but by all means, make him be a little social,” Serena instructs brightly as she directs Vanessa up the stairs. 

“Serena said I would find you up here,” she teases, but then she gets a better look at him, seated on the rug, knees pulled to his chest, his notebook tossed aside. “That is, if I’m not troubling you.”

Dan blinks up at her, his welcoming smile a little brittle. “It’s no trouble at all, I wouldn’t mind some company.”

“What’s the matter, good lad?”

He stares down at his hands, fidgeting. “We got word yesterday that Father is extending his tour. So now, it looks like we won’t even have him home for Christmas.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry, Dan,” Vanessa moves to sit down on the rug next to her friend. “I know you must miss him.”

“It’s alright,” he shrugs, though Vanessa senses it is anything but. “And what of you, Abrams,” he says, a bit more brightly, “How are the fine ladies of Constance Billiards treating you?”

Vanessa scoffs. “They are real pieces of work. I like your sister, at least. Serena is lovely, but her friend - Blair? She’s…”

“A 95-pound, doe-eyed, _bon-mot_ tossing package of girly evil?” 

Vanessa bursts out laughing. “Yes, exactly. And she and Serena are inseparable. How do you stand it?”

Dan shrugs. “I recently saw another side to her, and she’s not all that bad.”

It was a few months ago, just after Cece had decreed that Serena be sent to finishing school in Boston to curb her “wild ways.” Dan had thought “wild” was a hyperbolic adjective, but anything that didn’t fit Cece’s liking must be fixed, and that included her well-bred granddaughter’s apparent disinterest in marriage and being a lady of proper high society. The Waldorfs’ annual garden party was shortly after Serena had departed, leaving her bosom friend, Blair, behind at Constance Billiards. 

In contrast to Cece’s scrutiny, Eleanor Waldorf doted on Serena, so when his sister was conspicuously absent, Dan heard Mrs. Waldorf’s monologue on how _lovely_ Serena was, and how much the skilled seamstress _adored_ dressing her, and what a _shame_ it was that she couldn’t be in attendance. Dan seemed to be the only one who noticed Blair fleeing the party, fighting back tears. 

He had found her in one of the many hallways of Waldorf House, sat on the floor, her stockinged feet stretched out in front of her. She could only manage a half-hearted “Normally, I wouldn’t allow you to be this close to me, Humphrey,” which Dan took as a sign that she was very upset indeed. 

He had sat on the floor across from her, but a few feet down, and told her about Vanessa. 

“When I was little, I had this friend, and she and I—well, she was to me what Serena is to you.” He’d felt Blair’s eyes on him, but when she didn’t speak he took it as an invitation to continue. “I really...relied on her then—I don’t think she ever realized how much, and anyways, her family moved away, and I haven’t seen her since. And she hasn’t written in years.”

“Couldn’t you have written her?”

He’d nodded. “I could have. I _tried_ , but it was when my father and Lily married, and it felt like my life was changing so much,” he shook his head, “I didn’t know how to tell her. I know that leaving was her parents’ choice and not hers, but I hated the fact that she was gone.” 

He had glanced over at Blair, and saw her looking at him, actually looking at him. Whatever armor or facade of pride she normally wore around him had fallen away. “I wish I had, though,” he admitted to her. “Because even if nothing else came from it, she would know how I felt.”

He tells Vanessa all of this, lying on the attic floor, heads next to each other, sprawled out just like they would in front of the fireplace at his old home. 

“I didn’t know you felt that way,” she says, her voice small. 

“I never told you,” he answers, just as softly. 

She reaches over her head, feeling for his hand. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there.”

“It’s okay,” he squeezes her hand in his. “You’re here now.”

“So,” she lets out a deep breath, “was all this to tell me that Blair Waldorf is actually a good person?”

He snorts, “Oh, no, I said she wasn’t _that_ bad, but she’s still pretty insufferable at times.”

They both laugh. “Serena told me at the Coates’ party that she had been away, did she mean at finishing school?”

Dan hums in confirmation. 

“What made her come back to Concord?”

He sighs. “Eric got sick. Really sick. And Cece didn’t want Serena to know, because she knew that Serena would leave everything to come back to him, so I wrote to her, and told her to come home.”

“And?”

“And she put a toad in the headmistress’s bed.”

Vanessa let’s out a very undignified noise. “That would certainly get her sent home.”

“We are not permitted to use the word ‘expelled’ in the house,” Dan says lightly, “but that’s essentially what happened.”

Vanessa is unable to control her laughter, and Dan can’t help but laugh with her. 

* * *

Dan is exceedingly grateful to have Vanessa back in his life. He knew he had his siblings, and Nate, and even Blair, in her strange, combative way, but Vanessa was someone who knew him _before_. Before the major events that divided his life into clear cut sections. 

She knew him before his mother died, and she had known him before his father had remarried, when his father could no longer leave his children at home to travel, and therefore could no longer perform and earn. Vanessa had been there for the years when the Humphreys had been at their most dire, and even though the Abramses had even less, the families always shared what they had with each other. 

He was too young when it happened to quite comprehend the blow of Vanessa’s family moving away, and shortly thereafter, Rufus reunited with the widow Lily Van der Woodsen. His father had known her as Lily Rhodes, his own childhood sweetheart, before life and circumstance led them to other spouses. A twist of fate had brought them back together again, and brought Dan and Jenny a new mother, a new brother and sister, and a new life full of comfort that they had never known before. Despite all this, these new family and friends he had gained, Dan still spent much of the past six years feeling out of place, undeserving. It is an incredibly lonely feeling.

Now, with Vanessa returned, he feels known again. Bit by bit, afternoon by afternoon in the attic, they share their lives again. Dan tells her about his family, his three siblings that he loves so dearly: Serena and her flights of fancy, Eric and his gentle nature, Jenny and her ebullient enthusiasm. 

He confides in her about his father, whom he loves and respects, but misses all the time. With a wife to see to his home and hearth and children (and her servants to help), Rufus was able to pursue music again, and would be away for months at a time, playing piano in concert halls all across the Union, and now Europe it would seem, leaving Dan to be the “man of the house.” Dan confides in Vanessa that sometimes he almost wishes they were poor again, because at least it would mean being together, and then he feels guilty for thinking of it. Because he is so grateful that Jenny has been able to grow up free from the worry that colored most of his childhood.

He listens to Vanessa’s confidences as well. She shares about her years at the commune, how ill at ease she always felt there. Because while her father and mother felt so righteous in their choice, Vanessa had wanted more out of life: to study, to learn, to travel, to create. And wanting more was not necessarily the transcendentalist way. Arlo and Gabriela could not comprehend it: wasn’t here all she needed? It was a lonely thing, to hear from your family that you were loved, but never feel that you were understood. 

Dan swears, with their pinkies interlocked, that he will always try to do both, and she promises the same to him. 

Eventually, he feels brave enough to tell her about Eric. 

It had happened that last winter. The Rhodes women were champions of several charitable causes. Cece preferred to give her money more than anything else, and was not above making a bit of a show of her generosity. (Dan does tell Vanessa though, that once, years ago, the Lavesques had criticized her for being a staunch abolitionist and granting gifts to freedmen, and Cece had told them to bugger right off.) 

Lily, in contrast, chose to be more hands on in her charity, giving not just her money, but her time and labor as well. All the children followed suit. Serena was the best at it, putting people at ease, helping struggling families with their fussy babies, coaxing them into smiles and giggles. Jenny grumbled about having to work, but always followed Serena’s lead. Socializing came less easily to Dan, but he was always eager to help, and it was all too easy to look into the eyes of children like the Hummels and see what his life could have been—what Jenny’s could have been (he suspects Lily does too, and that’s why she is so diligent about this work). 

Eric was always painfully shy, but his sympathetic heart was enough to pull him forward and lend what help he could. And when Serena was away, he became even more determined to follow her example, and continue as she would do. But, poverty has several unseen dangers, scarlet fever being one of them, and, on one visit to a family in need, Eric contracted it. 

Dan and his father and Lily had been ill with it before, but Jenny had to be sent to Cece’s home for her safety. Eric’s mother spared no expense to see him well, but even with all the attention and care his family and doctors and nurses could give him, he still very nearly did not make it. 

It was distressing for all of them. Dan could not help but think of his mother, who had succumbed to illness not unlike his brother’s. And to all of them, Eric was the heart of the family, the sweet soul by the hearth around which they centered themselves. If they lost him, what was left?

Even through all of this, Serena was not called home. Cece had insisted that she wouldn’t be of any use to him anyway, and it would be pointless to risk her being infected as well. Lily and Rufus, who were overflowing with worry and preoccupied with their round the clock vigils, did not have them in it to fight the Rhodes matriarch. But Dan had remembered his stepsister telling him she’d had the fever when she was young too, and since he knew that Eric would unquestionably be better off with his big sister at his side, Dan wrote to Serena, and bade her come home immediately. He had even sent his own pocket money along, just so she wouldn’t have to worry about Cece or anyone else discovering her until she was back. 

Dan recalls staying with Eric through one night, watching the rise and fall of his breath. Dan had drifted off—exhausted after several consecutive sleepless nights—and woke to find Eric’s bed empty. He had raced down the stairs as fast he could, fear gripped tight around his heart, only to sob in relief at the sight of Eric sitting up at the kitchen table, his fever broken, and his elder sister’s arm around his shoulders.

The recovery had been slow, but Eric’s sisters and brother had stayed by his side through the whole spring, bringing him into the sunshine. When summer came, Rufus rented a cottage in Plymouth and took them all to the seaside, where the ocean air bolstered Eric that much more. 

Dan lays the whole heart wrenching tale at Vanessa’s feet, and the fear that has not fully left him. Because for all the triumph of Eric’s recovery, Dan knows that he will never be quite the same, not as strong, or as resilient as he used to be. 

Vanessa observes Eric carefully after that. He is shy, to be sure, but also whip-smart, and he seems to have inherited his stepfather’s enthusiasm for music. Every time Vanessa comes round to Rosewood, she can hear the piano, the sound of Eric working at his passion. She knows Dan frets about his younger brother’s frailty, but when Eric’s seated at the keys, he looks as vital and glowing with life as any of them. 

* * *

In the weeks following her return to Concord, Vanessa is happy to find herself enfolded into the affections of the whole Humphrey family. Rufus is still abroad, but there is Lily, who is kind and generous in her genteel way, and always welcomes Vanessa to Rosewood with an offer of tea and whatever pastry Larissa has made that day. Dan and Jenny, of course, had been her friends before, and it is not long until it feels like they hadn’t spent any time apart at all. Serena and Eric are lovely too, in different ways. Serena is all extroverted sunshine, open and welcoming to all, while still making the individuals on whom she bestows her attention feel special. Eric, who was reportedly shy to begin with, has become even more so in the wake of his illness, but is sweet and kind, and with Serena and Jenny’s encouragement, grows comfortable around Vanessa, and soon he allows her to see his biting wit and jovial sense of humor, previously reserved only for those in his family. Though as time goes on, Vanessa feels more and more a part of the family herself. 

The only thorn in her side in her new life in Concord is Serena’s best friend and shadow, Blair Waldorf. After hearing Dan’s story and Serena’s initial placations, Vanessa had been willing to write off the other girl’s standoffishness as an act of nerves, or self-defense. But as time goes on, and Vanessa sees how Blair operates in the classrooms of Constance Billiards: holding court over the other girls, playing teacher’s pet to the equally haughty Ms. Queller, and endeavoring to beat Vanessa at every academic effort (often by Machiavellian means), the less inclined Vanessa is to offer any charitable thoughts towards the other girl, no matter how many times Serena gently suggests that they try to get along (“I think you have more in common than you might believe, V”).

The tension between the two girls comes to a head towards the end of the fall term, right before the school is to close for the Christmas holidays, during the annual Constance Billiards/St. Jude’s essay competition. Each year the winners, one girl and one boy, respectively, were honored with the opportunity to give their speech at the brother and sister schools’ combined holiday assembly, but more than that, it would be a quantifiable truth that the winner was undoubtedly the best student Constance had to offer. Vanessa had to win. 

She and Dan labored diligently over their essays, each of them taking up their own corner in the Humphrey’s attic. She kept her drafts safely at Rosewood, not trusting to leave them in her dormitory and risk sabotage at the hands of one of Blair’s ladies-in-waiting. 

Blair was working just as hard, scribbling and scrawling idea after idea, Serena would watch her with great amusement during their free time, the brunette girl so consumed with the idea of winning. 

In the days leading up to the competition, Vanessa and Blair circle around each other like twin birds of prey, both of them so concerned about the other girl beating them that they never even consider the possibility of another contestant winning. 

And then, the morning the winners are announced, they both receive a great shock. Not from the St. Jude’s side, for it was obvious to both of them that Daniel Humphrey would win, but from the winner from Constance, printed in black and white: Nelly Yuki.

Though Vanessa is terribly proud of her best friend, her humiliation and the realization of her own near-sightedness is excruciating. There’s nothing to be done for it, sadly, other than cheer Dan on at the assembly and suffer through the drivel Nelly delivers. Vanessa knows she could have done better, should have done better. And to be quite frank, she knows Blair could have too. 

Vanessa elects to stay in Concord for the Christmas holidays. The Abramses had not been very festive since they celebrated with the Humphreys all those years ago, and so when Dan and Serena invite her to stay, Vanessa finds it impossible to resist. 

One day, shortly before Christmas, the family (plus Vanessa, minus Rufus) is gathered in the drawing room at Rosewood to decorate for the holiday. Serena and Lily are working on hanging garlands, Jenny and Eric are chattering as they make popcorn strings, and Dan and Vanessa are sprawled out on their backs by the fire, having done their part by chopping down and bringing in the tree, now standing nobly in the corner. 

Dan is bemoaning the lack of winter weather at this time of year (“Christmas won’t be Christmas without any snow”), when Blair storms into the room. Contrary to everyone’s expectations, she isn’t there for Serena, but Vanessa, and stomps over until she’s hovering over Vanessa and Dan’s heads. 

“We need to talk, Abrams.”

Vanessa sits up, perplexed, while Dan watches with wide eyes. “About what?”

Blair huffs. “We both know that it is preposterous that _Nelly Yuki_ won,” she says the girl’s name like an epithet. “I am certainly better than that, and I know you are too.”

Vanessa blinks in shock. Did Blair Waldorf just give her a compliment?

“I want to call a truce,” Blair holds out her hand for a shake, “I think we could make each other better, and keep the undeserving masses from beating us.” 

Vanessa is utterly stunned, but takes Blair’s hand anyway, shaking it once. “Truce,” she agrees. 

Blair smiles smugly, satisfied. “Excellent. Well, I can’t stay, Papa and I have an appointment to bake pies. Merry Christmas, Humphreys,” she says, before swooshing out of the room, as suddenly as she came in. 

Serena and Lily watch with amused expressions, while Eric and Jenny snicker from their post at the table. Vanessa glances down to see Dan’s eyebrows raised so high, they’re on the verge of flying off his forehead. 

“Did Blair Waldorf and I just become friends?” She finally says, still astonished.

Dan smirks, “It’s a Christmas miracle.” 

At that point, Larissa comes into the room with her own announcement of a Christmas surprise. The family looks to the doorway, and in walks Rufus. 

Jenny jumps up and shrieks with delight, sending the bowl of popcorn that had been on her lap flying as she runs across the room and into her father’s arms. 

Lily gets to him next, giving him a kiss and exclaims tearfully, “Oh, I’m so happy you’re home, now I can be angry at you in person.” 

Rufus only laughs and brushes her tears away, and then he’s pulling his whole family into a hug, all six of them clinging onto each other. A lump rises in Vanessa’s throat at the scene before her. 

Then, Dan and Serena both reach out a hand, “Get in here, V,” they instruct, and she obliges with a chuckle, letting herself be enfolded into the warmth of the family she so loves. 

Over Dan’s shoulder, Vanessa can see the telltale flurry of snowflakes begin to fall through the window. 

A Merry Christmas indeed. 

* * *

Vanessa and Blair’s ceasefire heralded in a new era for their little group. Now it wasn’t just Vanessa and Dan swapping stories in the attic, it was all of them: Serena, Eric, Jenny, Blair. They came to form their own esteemed society. Dan, with Blair’s surprising endorsement, decreed they be called the Pickwick Club, and they gathered regularly together to discuss the important matters that affected them all. 

Additionally, they produced and performed the esteemed stage works created by their members. Dan and Vanessa had become quite the playwriting team. Dan would write the stories: creating the structure of the plot and characters, and Vanessa would write the dialog and staging, filling in Dan’s sweeping drama with critical details. 

The spring passed in this way, and was a delightfully happy time. Eric’s health was much improved, Blair and Vanessa’s alliance meant that they were excelling in their studies, and Rufus was home much more now. He still performed and traveled, but he never ventured too far from Concord. He had said that he missed his family too much while he was away, and his wife and children were exceedingly happy to have him back.

Of course, their contentment was not without contention. Vanessa and Dan’s artistic partnership—fruitful as it was—often caused quarrels of conflicting visions between the two, but they always made amends. To Dan, Vanessa was the one he trusted most with his work, and he valued her opinion more than anyone else’s. To Vanessa, Dan was the only one whose opinion she valued, she wouldn’t reveal her preliminary work to anyone else. 

The Pickwick Club also had two members who were enthusiastic (to say the least) in their debates. Vanessa had not anticipated that her congenial relationship with Blair would lead her to witness so much sparring between Blair and Dan.

On one occasion, what had started as a meeting to manage the business of the small post office they had built in the woods halfway between the Constance dormitory and the Humphrey house had somehow devolved into a more than spirited discussion on modern poetry. 

“Whitman is a genius.”

“Ugh, you are _such_ a boy, you only say that because you are too uncultured to have read Verlaine.”

Dan snorts in derision before forming another retort, something about how Blair is _such_ a girl. 

Vanessa checks out of the rest of the debate, she’s seen enough of these to know that they’ll be going on for some time yet. 

Vanessa once witnessed them viciously argue over the fate of the characters in A Tale of Two Cities in the attic for the better part of an afternoon. She’d watched them, mystified at the fact that if they had stopped talking at each other long enough they might have realized that they were basically saying the same thing.

They are always taunting each other, antagonistic. Dan will complain to Vanessa about how he doesn’t get it, why must Blair act this way? And Vanessa will think that he’s an idiot, because she can clearly see how Blair lights up whenever he’s around, and how she blushes every time he calls her “Waldorf.” Vanessa is no fool either, she knows that Dan doesn’t strongly believe half the things he says to challenge Blair, he only says them to goad her into a discussion.

At least she does not have to bear these altercations alone. Blair’s best bosom friend is always present too, and Serena will catch Vanessa’s eye with a wry smile and a fond shake of her head, and it will set Vanessa aglow. 

Even with all the arguments and colliding personalities, Vanessa is exceptionally fond of her company, and she finds herself wishing on more than one occasion that they may stay like this forever. 

* * *

As the months and years go by, the Humphreys (plus Vanessa and Blair), love and rely on each other, and despite how content they are holding each other’s company, they cannot avoid the changing tide of growing up. 

Dan is the first of them to complete his studies at Constance/St. Jude’s. Being a boy, he’d had the luxury of starting school earlier in life than the girls, and was permitted to pursue his education with a single-mindedness that was oft discouraged amongst ladies (however much those ladies may protest). 

After finishing up at St Jude’s, Dan elects to take courses from the local college, so that he may continue to live at home and tutor Eric, who due to his health and timid social nature, preferred to learn at home. It took Lily months of searching and the resignations of three different professional (and expensive) tutors before she realized that Eric thrived best in between the tenures of Lily’s appointees, when he was learning from the careful attentions of his elder brother. 

And so, Dan is caught up in a veritable bustle of a routine: classes across town in the mornings, teaching in the afternoons until Eric retreats to his piano, and Dan listens while he studies for tomorrow’s lectures, then in the evenings, he writes and writes. Vanessa is the only one who reads his stories before he submits them to papers in the area. He never attaches his real name, so that Lily isn’t associated with or offended by them. 

He could have attended university someplace else, but he’d declined, stating that he has no desire to leave, and anyway, Eric needs him to lead him in his studies. Dan does confess to Vanessa privately that he also does not wish to leave his family, and what’s more, he does not want to take Cece or Lily’s money to pay for his education elsewhere when he can do just fine here. 

Sometimes Vanessa has the urge to shake him by the shoulders and tell him that he needn’t throw away what’s good just because he feels like he hasn’t earned it. It’s her opinion that he does deserve it, simply by being who he is. She does try to tell him gently, but everytime she does he just brushes it off. 

Vanessa and Blair, in their formidable alliance to make each into the best academic she could be, go as far as they can at Constance Billiards. When they’ve finally run out of lessons and classes and exams, Headmistress Reuther meets with them. 

“If it were up to me,” she says, “I would send you along to the college with the St. Jude graduates.” She lets out a sigh of exasperation, “But seeing as I can’t, I would like to offer you both the opportunity to continue your studies with me, privately.”

Blair’s eyes flick over to Vanessa’s, and the hunger in them is indisputable.

“We’d be _honored_ ,” Blair decrees, with Vanessa nodding eagerly in agreement. 

Though she remains technically a student of the school, Vanessa is weary of living in a dormitory. She spends most of her time at either Waldorf House or Rosewood anyway, but she is reticent to take up residence at either place (however much Serena and Jenny offer to share their respective rooms). Living in all that luxury, and not being allowed to earn it, makes Vanessa uneasy. Dan is the only one who understands her hesitation, but he does offer to help her find a solution. 

Vanessa considers working as a governess for the Coateses’ youngest two children. They're a nice enough family, and Isobel—who was Vanessa’s age—had been kind at Constance (though she had been easily led by Blair, and then mean old Penelope, following the Great Alliance). Plus, the position would allow Vanessa to study with Reuther and Blair while also earning her keep, though it would take much of her time away from her dear Humphreys. She talks herself into almost taking the position when Lily comes to her with another opportunity. 

The Grand Rhodes matriarch, the intimidating Celia Rhodes, had been widowed and living on her own for as long as her grandchildren could remember, holding court over her enormous house, Amagansett. She was getting on in years now, and refused to quit her estate, and so her daughter thought that she would benefit from having a companion. 

Despite her apprehension regarding Cece herself, Vanessa is excited at the opportunity. She could study, earn her keep, and still have enough hours left in the day for the Pickwick Club. Plus, Amagansett was only a brisk walk from Rosewood. 

And so, Vanessa packs up her carpet bag of clothing and trunk of books, and moves across town to Celia Rhodes’ house. She’s practically euphoric, standing on the carpet in the middle of her very own bedroom, giddy at the reality of—for the first time in her life—having a space that is entirely _hers_. 

The role of Cece’s companion, however, proves to be a trial for Vanessa. Willful and stubborn by nature, she does not bend easily to the haughtiness of the elderly lady who is entirely accustomed to getting her own way. Vanessa has to learn when to bite her tongue, but still, she often chooses not to, challenging the self-important old woman on her opinions of women and expectations and marriage. Cece makes it plain that she thinks Vanessa will need to marry well before she may make any sort of life, but Vanessa is determined to make her own way, even if it means suffering the lectures of a thousand Ceces. 

Cece does, however, allow her companion a great amount of freedom, giving her plenty of time to pal around with Dan and do her lessons with Blair. 

Cece adores Blair, and makes no secret of it. The girls alternate weeks, meeting either at Waldorf House or Amagansett, and Cece will greet her with all the warmth a woman of her generation and breeding can possibly muster. 

“I wish you were my grandchild,” she’d say, “you’re the only one with any sense.”

Blair preens under Cece’s praise, but Vanessa doesn’t begrudge her for it. Mr. and Mrs. Waldorf were away from Concord increasingly more often, and even when they were home...well, Vanessa knows that sometimes parents cannot provide comfort even when you inhabited the very same space. 

Still, it is on one of these occasions when Eleanor Waldorf is home, that she insists it is time for her daughter to be presented to society at a cotillion in Boston. Serena and Vanessa, being like in age, are invited to come along as well, and stay in the Waldorfs’ townhouse in the city before and after the grand affair. 

Vanessa declines immediately. Blair may be her friend, but she is uneasy accepting hospitality from Blair’s mother. Plus, an evening devoted entirely to dressing in gowns and dancing with gentlemen? Sounds like a positively horrid time. 

Dan also declines from attending the ball in question. He had never developed a taste for the events since becoming Lily’s stepson, and if Vanessa wouldn’t be there, he didn’t see why he should be. 

So, on the afternoon they’re to depart, the Humphreys (plus Vanessa), gather in front of Waldorf House to see Blair and Serena off. Lily and Eleanor converse for a time, heads bent together, seeming the very image of their two daughters as they oversee and direct the loading of the carriage. Rufus is currently in Boston himself for a previous engagement, but would be escorting the girls home while Mrs. Waldorf remained at her dress shop in the city. Eric hangs back shyly, talking more to the horses than anyone else, while Jenny seethes next to him, incensed that she is too young to tag along. 

Vanessa had sent Serena off with a jolly, “Don’t go fall in love and get married!” and was now caught up in a game of play sparring with Dan in the drive, each of them trying to unseat the other’s balance with stealth strikes. 

It’s during their game that Dan notices Vanessa wearing an old waistcoat of his. She and Jenny were constantly swiping his clothes—Jenny to make them over into something else, while Vanessa bemoaned that men’s fashion was far more comfortable than women’s. Dan didn’t mind overmuch, Lily bought him more things than he could ever justify wearing, and what’s more, he thinks they suit Vanessa much better. 

He’s so caught in his reverie that he fails to dodge a strike to his arm, and Vanessa lets out an “Aha!” of triumph. He cannot mind losing too much either, not when she smiles like that. 

The game seemingly over, the pair return their attention to the Waldorfs’ carriage, now fully loaded, with the three ladies ready to depart. 

“Oh!” Lily exclaims, stepping forward at the last moment. “Serena, sweetheart I almost forgot to give you this:” she produces a long, slender box from the pockets of her skirts. “It was mine when I was your age. I never understood saving jewelry until marriage.” Eleanor hums in agreement behind her. “You should have something that’s just yours.” 

Serena lets out a squeal of delight and hugs her mother tightly. “Thank you, Mother.”

“Of course,” Lily laughs, “Pretty things should be enjoyed.”

“Yes,” Vanessa declares grandly, turning towards Dan, “pretty things should be enjoyed,” and in a theatrical, swooping movement, she bows low and holds out a small gold ring in front of him. 

It was the sigil ring she wore around her right index finger. It had previously belonged to her father, but when Arlo and Gabriella had forsworn material possessions, Vanessa had kept it. And now she was giving it to him. 

Dan blinks, stunned silent, but he nonetheless slides the ring onto his right hand, knowing that that’s where it will stay for a long time to come.

Vanessa pays no mind to how affected he is by her gesture, and prances away to throw her arms companionably around Jenny and Eric, as they wave goodbye at the carriage moving down the drive.

* * *

Blair and Serena return to Concord with great fanfare, at least to the members of the Pickwick Club. All of them were eager to hear tell of the girls’ adventures in Boston, though perhaps none so much as Jenny. She pounces on the pair when they arrive, eager to hear all about the ball: the music, the dancing, the fashions—especially the fashions. 

Vanessa is perhaps the least interested in hearing the tale, but is nonetheless happy to have her friends returned. She listens to the babble of Jenny over the sound of Eric practicing at the piano in the corner. Dan is curled up in his favorite armchair by the fire, and Vanessa is sprawled out on the rug beside him, they were both proofreading the other’s recent creation. 

“So,” Dan teases, “pick up any offers? Any rich, eligible men make their passionate declarations?”

“No,” says Blair, “but the day’s still young. Post hasn’t come yet.”

Dan lets out a snort of laughter, but doesn’t look up from the pages in his hand. 

“Nate was there,” Serena announces.

That gets Dan’s attention. “Archibald, really?”

“Mmhmm,” his sister replies, a soft secret smile lighting up her face. 

“Who?” Vanessa asks.

“Nathaniel Archibald,” Blair explains, “he’s our age, but a few years ago his family sent him to finish his schooling in Boston.”

“Why?”

“Because his mother is a van der Bilt,” Dan says, “and his grandfather thought St. Jude’s was far too common a place for his esteemed progeny.”

“You could have gone, too,” Eric says mildly from his post at the piano, “Grandmama offered.”

Dan just grunts and waves the idea away. 

“In any case,” Blair chimes back in in her usual authoritative way, “We got to speak with him, and he informed us that he is moving back to Concord within the fortnight. I’m sure he’ll be at the next gathering. You can meet him then, V.”

“I’m not sure if I want to now,” Vanessa admits.

Dan sighs, “No, no. He’s a good fellow. His family may be ridiculous, but he’s my dearest friend. Other than you of course, V.”

“Aw,” she reaches up to muss his hair, “just as long as you don’t replace me.”

“Never,” he promises, too earnestly for her comfort. 

Nathaniel Archibald, Vanessa soon learns, is indeed a capital sort of fellow. Jolly and easygoing, he puts everyone, even the ever-stern Blair, at ease. He is remarkably similar to Serena in that way.

Nate is even richer than Lily Humphrey, and acts almost apologetic for it. Vanessa supposes that’s why he and Dan get along so well, their shared humility seems to be rare amongst privileged young men. Nate does indeed have an easy and generous spirit, and Vanessa takes to him quickly despite herself, as do the rest of the Humphreys, and Nate quickly becomes a part of their little group. 

He and Dan are already good friends, and he is indulgent with Jenny enough that it earns him her undying loyalty. Nate even puts Eric at ease, and encourages the younger boy out of his shell, which is no small feat. The only others to have accomplished it are Blair and Vanessa herself. 

Jenny whispers in an aside to her that Blair and Nate had had an understanding before he went off to Boston. Vanessa is surprised to hear it, if she’d had to guess, she would have said that if there’d been any understanding, it would be between Nate and Serena. Regardless, whatever had existed seemed to have faded with time or distance. Blair and Nate are friendly with each other, but they interact with a familial sort of ease that reminds Vanessa more of Dan and Serena, than that of two lovers. In any case, Nate seems to only have eyes for Serena, which to Vanessa indicates an imminent threat. 

In the last vestiges of the warm weather, Nate invites them all to spend a day at his grandfather’s country house near Bedford. When they arrive, Dan whispers to Vanessa that “house” may be an understatement, and she has to stifle her giggles behind her hand. 

They do have a splendid day, enjoying the large expansive garden, even bigger than that at Waldorf House or Amagansett, playing games, flying kites, picnicking in the grass. 

After a time, Nate and Serena slip away to walk along the river bank that butts up against old William van der Bilt’s property. Vanessa is watching them suspiciously when Dan plops down on the grass next to her. 

“Guess what?” he asks impishly.

“What?”

“I think I have finally chosen a good pen name for publishing my stories. What do you think of Lincoln Hawk?”

She snorts. “I think you are ridiculous.”

“Ah, but just ridiculous enough to work?”

She shakes her head with a laugh. “I just don’t see why you can’t put your own name to them.”

He shrugs. “Lily has given me so much, it would feel...ungrateful of me.”

Vanessa sighs. They’d had this argument so many times in the past that she didn’t feel like pressing the point now. “Then I guess...yes, just ridiculous enough to work.”

Dan grins widely. “That’s not all I have to tell you.”

She tilts her head in question. 

“Nate told me he bought the _Concord Spectator_ , he’s invited me to write for him.”

“Really? Oh that’s capital!” Vanessa slugs him on the arm in excitement.

He winces, but laughs at her enthusiasm all the same. “But that’s not all…” he singsongs.

“Christopher Columbus, what more could there possibly be?”

“Tell me, has our dear Serena been missing a glove lately?”

Vanessa’s forehead crinkles in confusion, and then the realization dawns on her. “He _didn’t_.”

Dan's eyes sparkle with mischief, “Oh yes he did.”

“How do you know?”

“I saw it.”

“Where?”

“In his pocket,” he reports gleefully.

“All this time?”

“Yeees,” Dan says playfully, “isn’t it _romantic_?”

“No it’s not,” Vanessa scoffs. “It’s horrid.”

“I thought you’d be pleased,” he says mildly. 

“At the thought of anyone coming to take Serena away?” she retorts petulantly, “No thank you!”

“You’ll feel differently when someone comes along to take you away,” he says teasingly. 

Vanessa snorts. “I’d like to see someone try,” she grumbles, standing up and making her way to the riverside, Dan’s gaze prickling the back of her neck as she goes. 

* * *

On one wintry afternoon, Vanessa is at her regular appointment at Waldorf House. She and Blair were both committed to the extra course work given to them by Reuther, united in their determination to be the best intellectual ladies in New England, the Nelly Yukis of the world be damned. Serena was supposed to be keeping them company this afternoon as well, but Nate had invited her on a sleigh ride, and that was that. 

Blair and Vanessa are deep into their Latin conjugations when Blair’s maid Dorota comes in, looking harried. 

“Miss Blair, Miss Vanessa, sorry for interrupting, but—” she looks anxiously over her shoulder, “young Miss Humphrey is outside.”

The two young women exchange a perplexed look, then head to the window to see Jenny pacing back and forth in the snow outside. 

“Jenny?” Vanessa calls out the window, “what are you doing here?”

Jenny looks up, and Vanessa sees her red face marked by tear tracks. “I don’t have anywhere else to go.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be in class?” Vanessa asks her, alarmed by the younger girl’s apparent distress. 

“I got sent home, but I go home because I’m in such trouble! Look!” she wails, and raises her hand. Blair gasps at the red lash marks across Jenny’s palm. 

“J,” Blair calls down, “why don’t you come inside?” She invites Jenny in with a sort of gentleness Vanessa has only seen her direct at Serena and Eric. “We can have Dorota take a look at that hand?”

Jenny sniffles, then nods her assent. 

“What do you think happened?” Vanessa asks Blair as they head downstairs. 

“Queller,” Blair answers, her mouth in a thin line, “what else could it be?”

“She seems really upset,” Vanessa worries. “I think we should send for Lily, or—”

“V, no,” Blair grabs her wrist to stop her. “Jenny came here because she _didn’t_ want to go home, she’s obviously afraid to tell her parents what happened.”

“Well, we should tell somebody, don’t you think?”

Blair nods, considering, “Go fetch Dan, if there’s anyone who can talk her down…”

“Right, of course,” Vanessa wonders why she hadn’t thought of it first. “He should be at the Spectator this time of day anyway.” 

“Go, Dorota and I can take care of her until you get back.”

Vanessa goes to grab her cloak, and then Blair escorts her to the door, “You’re very cool-headed in a crisis, anyone tell you that?”

Blair shrugs. “Serena had her fair share of theatrics when she was that age. Consider me Concord’s safe haven from Lily and Cece.”

Vanessa snorts, and heads off into town. 

Dan is polishing off his latest piece when he hears the jingle of the bell on the door. He pauses, then checks the clock, confused. Nate had knocked off work to take Serena out, there was no way he’d be coming back so soon. He turns around to see who it could be, and—

“Vanessa? What brings you here? Waldorf finally lose it?” 

She huffs impatiently, apparently not in the mood for a joke. “You need to come with me.”

“What - why?”

“I’ll explain on the way, just grab your coat and start walking.”

He follows Vanessa out, and she relays the relevant information. Dan picks up the pace as she explains, until Vanessa has to half-jog to keep up with his stride. 

They finally get to the Waldorfs’ parlor, Jenny is seated on the sofa next to Blair, trying to talk through tears, while the older girl rubs her back soothingly. Dan is almost surprised at Blair’s maternal manner, but he remembers how she had cared for Serena too, not that long ago. 

Jenny spots him coming into the room and seems to get worked up all over again. He goes quickly over to his little sister, and kneels in front of her. 

“Jen, what happened?” he asks gently. 

She explains it incoherently, but as the words tumble out of her mouth, blubbering about Queller, a drawing on her slate, a deal she made with Agnes, and something about two other girls named Emma and Sawyer, Dan is able to stitch enough information together.

He takes Jenny’s hands in his, and inspects the bandage carefully wrapped by Dorota. “Queller really does this?” he asks Vanessa over his shoulder. 

“Not to us,” Blair answers, “but she isn’t exactly known for her charitable nature.”

Jenny sniffles. 

“Jen,” he says with all the elder brother kindness he can muster. “I won’t make you go back to Constance, but you will have to come home with me eventually.” 

“Father will be so mad,” she whimpers. 

“Hey,” he tilts his head so that he can look her in the eye, “let me talk to him, okay? You deserve better than to learn from that old ninny anyway.” His mouth twitches as he hears Vanessa hide a noise of amusement behind him. 

Jenny takes a shaky breath, “But...I can’t not go to school…”

“How about I teach you?” he offers. “You can join me and Eric. I guarantee it’ll be a lot more fun than having to share a desk with that awful Agnes.”

“She’s not that bad,” Jenny says quietly. 

“Oh yes she is,” Blair chimes in, eyebrow arched. 

“Well, that settles it,” Dan concludes, “if Waldorf says she’s bad then she _really_ must be awful,” he smirks up at Blair, who narrows her eyes and presses her lips together, fighting a smile. 

“Okay,” Jenny concedes, “but we don’t have to go right now, do we?”

“Oh, I think you can at least stay for tea,” Blair says, truly smiling now. “You’d be saving us from a horrid Latin lesson, right V?”

“Absolutely,” Vanessa answers warmly. 

After a few hours’ reprieve at Waldorf House, Jenny is steeled enough to return to Rosewood, Dan and Vanessa at her side. In the days that follow, in addition to Dan’s concerned eye, Vanessa and Blair each check on the girl in their own ways: Vanessa bringing her good humor with exaggerated stories of the antics of Cece and her dog, Dickens; Blair bringing her shared love of fashions, with plates and fabric samples swiped directly from her mother’s work tables. 

Both young women knew the tribulations of being a girl at Constance, and they both feel for Jenny’s own struggles. Blair survived the fray by becoming the fiercest predator amongst the mean girls, her power reinforced by her elegant upbringing and lineage. Vanessa, who had no such privilege, fought back by resolving to beat them, to be better at them in any and every academic sense, and she succeeded, with the additional help of Blair and Serena’s friendship. 

Jenny had no wish to best anyone, she had only wanted to belong, and was taken advantage of for it. Because even though she was as good as Lily’s daughter, and Celia Rhodes’ granddaughter, she could not shake the label of the musician’s girl, which for some ridiculous reason (in Vanessa’s opinion, and Blair’s for that matter), made her unworthy. Dan, who had been through the St. Jude’s mill, understood the crux of the matter—even though the politics that consume the girls’ school left him mystified— and he was resolved to make sure his younger sister was protected. 

He enlists the help of his stepmother, and together he and Lily present Rufus with a plan to allow Jenny to complete her education without having to face down the mean girls of Constance Billiards. 

Dan reports to Vanessa that his father was reticent at first, but was eventually convinced to give in, and, after one overnight trip to Boston for an evening’s performance, he returned with a new sewing machine, much to his daughter’s delight.

She is relieved to hear it ended so well. Dan so rarely disagrees with his father, so when he does, Vanessa knows it is to fight for something truly important, and Vanessa cannot think of anything Dan loves more dearly than Jenny. Except…

Since Nate and Serena began courting in earnest, the fundamental rules of their little group had changed. To Vanessa, it was an unwelcome wakeup call, the realization that they were growing up hitting her like a shock of ice water. She had been blissful in their togetherness, the five of them, well, six really, Blair was just as much of their company as Vanessa was. Now Serena’s head had been turned, and all thanks to _Nate_ , their group was in imminent danger of fracturing, in more ways than one. Vanessa would very much like to hate Nate for it, but he was so nice, so pure-hearted and uncommonly good, that she could never quite manage it. 

Vanessa had thought of Serena as a kindred spirit, too fond of independence to ever think of marrying, and she had dreamed, perhaps foolishly, that they could form an adventurous life together, only being accountable unto themselves (and those four other souls they hold dear). They would conspire about it in the attic, imagining being pirates or pioneers or jewel thieves or travelling bards. But now, Serena is changed, her head filled with thoughts of a very different kind of life.

Dan appears changed as well, his thoughtful nature as a boy turning him into a serious man, thinking about his own future, and watching the example his old school chum sets with a wistfulness that makes Vanessa uneasy.

The more she sees Serena and Nate together the more she aches for something that she will never have. And, the more it goes on—Dan watching his sister and best friend grow deeper in love—the more Vanessa catches him looking at her like he is about to do something irretrievably stupid.

It forces her to examine her own feelings, and she does love Dan, as much as she’s ever loved anyone, but love him in a way that makes her want to marry him? She thinks about Lily and Rufus, how they look at each other, and treat each other with tenderness mixed with passion and humor, and patience with fondness and exasperation. It’s romance of the real kind, and try as she might, Vanessa knows that she does not feel it. 

She senses it coming, the time when she’ll have to break Dan’s heart, and she dreads it. Even more so than the day when Serena comes home with Anne van der Bilt Archibald’s ring on her finger, and a smile even brighter than its diamonds. 

Much to Vanessa’s dismay, the upcoming wedding seems to be all anyone at Rosewood can talk about. Even Dan and Eric are roped into the discussion by the other girls. The Humphrey drawing room had become the base of operations for the grand event. Vanessa watches from her station by the fireplace, glancing surreptitiously over her book at Jenny and Blair twittering around the prospective bride. 

“You are having a new gown made, right, S?” Jenny asks eagerly, sketchpad in hand, her pencil moving faster than her mind or tongue. “I’m thinking blue, you always look lovely in blue. Or yellow.”

“When I get married,” Blair says dreamily on Serena’s other side, “I should like a white gown, like Queen Victoria’s.”

“I suppose you’d want a German prince for a groom as well,” Dan quips from his desk in the corner.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she snips, “A prince from another country would do just fine.”

Dan throws his head back in laughter, and Vanessa catches Blair’s pleased smirk out of the corner of her eye. 

* * *

Serena’s wedding day dawns with perfect weather, all golden sunshine. Vanessa wouldn’t have expected anything else. 

They are all gathered at Amagansett, where Cece graciously agreed to host what was sure to be a grand affair. Serena and Vanessa are tucked away in V’s bedroom upstairs to prepare, with Blair’s arrival forthcoming. 

Vanessa spots the preparations being made in the back garden out the window. Jenny is already prettily dressed in one of her own creations, complete with a flower crown, and is helping her brothers bedeck the setup with more flowers. Vanessa laughs softly to herself when she sees Jenny break formation and try to decorate Dan’s head with the flowers instead. He fights her off bravely, but does not get away unscathed, for a stubborn daisy takes hold in his curls. She’s too far away to see for sure, but she guesses he’s not half as annoyed as he pretends to be, happy to see Jenny laugh so much again after the events of last winter. 

Vanessa’s so caught up in the scene below that she forgets the tragedy currently at hand, until Serena muses out loud: 

“I can’t believe today’s my wedding day.”

Vanessa fidgets, then marches over and kneels in front of the armchair where Serena is sitting. “We could leave,” she says earnestly, “We can leave right now.”

Serena looks down at her friend in utter confusion. 

“I can make money,” Vanessa continues, “I’ll sell my plays, I’ll do anything. I’ll cook, I’ll clean, I can make a life for us -”

“V—” Serena starts to protest. 

“And you, you should be an actress. You should have a life on the stage,” Vanessa clutches the other girl’s hands, caught up in the future she was painting. “Let’s just run away together.”

Serena looks her in the eye, and says, firmly but gently, “I want to get married. I want to marry Nate.”

“But why?” Vanessa sighs, not understanding, “You will be bored of him in two years and we will be interesting forever.”

Serena smiles down at her, shaking her head. “Just because my dreams are different than yours doesn’t mean they are unimportant.”

Vanessa deflates. She didn’t know when her dreams and Serena’s had become so different. “I just - I don’t want you to leave us.”

“Oh, V,” she says, touched, “I’m not leaving you. And besides,” she continues, placing her crown of flowers on Vanessa’s head, “one day it will be your turn.”

Vanessa frowns and shakes her head, yanking the crown off. “I’d rather be a free spinster and paddle my own canoe. I would.”

Serena laughs at her vehemence, but Vanessa means every word. 

“I can’t believe childhood is over,” Vanessa whispers.

Serena smiles, and pets Vanessa’s hair in a soothing, sisterly gesture, like she does for Eric all the time. “It was going to end one way or another. And what a happy end.”

Serena looks down at her with such fond concern that for a moment Vanessa wants to lay all the burdens of her heart at Serena’s feet. _I am afraid that your brother is in love with me, and it’s entirely useless, because I am afraid that I am in love with you._

But then Blair breezes in and commands, with all her well-bred superiority, “Why are you ladies so idle? Don’t you know there’s a schedule to keep? _Vite, vite_!”

The wedding does end up being a beautiful event, and Vanessa cannot feel too melancholy with the rest of her family so merry around her. Funny, she thinks, that the Humphreys feel more like her family than her own blood. 

But, she supposes, as she takes in the scene around her, the Humphreys’ love has a way of bringing in lonely souls. First there was Vanessa, then Blair, and now Nate, all of them now wrapped up in this family that would never let them go. And Vanessa was so grateful for that. 

She just wished that none of it had to change. 

* * *

The newlywed Archibalds return from their honeymoon at the van der Bilt holdfast in Providence at the end of the summer, just as the leaves are starting to turn. They settle into Rhinebeck, the grand Archibald manor house just outside of Concord. Serena lovingly calls it a castle (not an inapt description), and invites the whole breadth of her family over to tour her new home and enjoy a lovely fall day. 

Vanessa will look back on it as the end of everything. 

She and Dan decide to walk back to Rosewood, to enjoy the last vestiges of the warm sun before the New England winter descends.

“Serena married,” Vanessa muses, “I feel as though we must do something reckless as well. Shall we run off and join a pirate ship?” she asks jokingly.

Dan stops in his tracks, gazing at her, and gives a small, half-shake of his head.

Vanessa freezes with fear. “No, no,” she says, turning back around, picking up her pace. 

“It’s no use, V,” he follows after her, ignoring her protests, “We have to have it out.”

And of course, _of course_ , he would think of doing this now, on a hilltop surrounded by the fiery colors of autumn. Dan has always loved a romantic setting. It would be perfect for the right girl. And yet.

“I have loved you ever since I’ve known you, V. Ever since you’ve come back. And I’ve tried,” he takes a deep breath, “I’ve tried to show you and you wouldn’t let me - which is fine, but - I cannot bear it any longer. I have to make you hear me.” 

“Dan, please don’t,” she begs him. 

“I know -” he runs a hand through his hair anxiously, “I know I’m not halfway good enough for you, and I’m not this great man -”

“No you are!” she cuts him off, unwilling to hear anymore. “You’re a great deal too good for me. And I’m so grateful to you, and I’m so proud of you. And I just - I don’t see why I can’t love you as you want me to. I don’t know why.”

“You can’t?” he asks, his voice small. 

“No. I can’t,” her chest aches at the despair in his voice, but she must be honest. “I can’t change how I feel. I’ve tried, but it would be a lie to say I do when I don’t.”

“Then why - why does everyone expect it? My family? My father?” He steps forward, “Vanessa, please, I love you.”

“I _can’t_ ,” she pleads, “I can’t say ‘yes’ truly so I won’t say it at all. Besides,” she adds, desperately trying for some levity, “I am not fit to be a wife in elegant society anyway.”

“I’m not part of elegant society!” He bursts out, frustrated. “Just because my father married into this world does not mean that I belong in it!”

She shakes her head. “You are a part of it. More than you know, and I never could be.”

He drags a hand over his face. “I don’t want it, any of it. I want you.”

“You don’t mean that.”

“I love you, Vanessa,” he protests simply. 

“We’d be sick of each other in a week,” she all but shouts at him, frustration and anxiety making her words sound harsher than she means them to be. “You would tire of my posturing, and I would hate your scribbling, and we would wish we hadn’t done it and everything would be horrid. We would grow to hate each other and I couldn’t—I could not bear that.”

He turns his face away from her. “Is that all?” he asks, his voice strained.

She nods sadly, the fight gone out of her. “Only that,” she sniffles, “I don’t think I will ever marry. I’m happy just as I am, and I love my liberty too well to give it up.”

Dan’s jaw tightens and he shakes his head gravely. “No, I know you. And one day you will meet someone and fall in love, and you will live and die for them because that is your way.” He looks her in the eye, pain written all across his face, “And I’ll watch,” he concludes, his voice breaking. 

Then Dan turns his back on her and stalks away, wiping at his eyes as he goes.

Vanessa slumps onto the hillside and puts her face in her hands. 


	2. How grateful I am

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vanessa goes to New York.
> 
> Dan goes to Europe.
> 
> Events transpire.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here is part two! This was so much fun to write. Thank you all so so much for your kind comments, this fic has been my baby these past few weeks so getting to finally share it has been great! Much love to you all <3

Vanessa leaves for New York soon after their confrontation on the hill, and Dan feels her absence like a wound through his chest. His father says the best cure is for him to stay busy, so that’s what he endeavors to do, filling his time with teaching and writing and studying. 

Unfortunately, this course of treatment is not sustainable for long. Eric is ready, beyond ready, to sit his university entrance exams, and Jenny could too, if she were so inclined (even though she much preferred working at her beloved sewing machine). Even writing fails to help him, the stories he had sent to Nate at the _Spectator_ and other publications had ceased coming to him. He feels like his mind and imagination have dried up.

But, there is a little ray of light—two to be exact—when his niece and nephew are born. Serena and Nate are delirious with happiness and exhaustion, so the Humphreys are frequent visitors to Rhinebeck to lend their assistance and dote on the new arrivals. Dan will hold little Will or Daisy to his chest, and for a short while, he will almost feel at peace. But as the days go by, he feels more and more restless.

Concord, Rosewood, his home and his attic and his books used to be all the world he needed. But now, he feels this inexplicable pull to leave, to be elsewhere. Dan begins to understand his father’s love of touring, moving from one place to another, and he begins to wonder if and how he should have his own travels. And then, the opportunity presents itself. 

His step-grandmother, Cece, had expressed frequently over the past couple years that she wanted to travel to Europe “one last time.” A slightly morbid sentiment to be sure, but Dan didn’t blame her for it. He’d thought she would take Serena or Eric with her, but Serena is a married mother now, and her responsibilities would keep her close to home for the foreseeable future. As for Eric, though he insisted he was in good health, no one in the family thought him strong enough for a transocean journey. 

Still, Cece—being a genteel elderly lady—required a companion for her travels. Even knowing all of this, Dan is still shocked when his father comes to him with the proposal that he and Jenny accompany Cece abroad. 

His knee-jerk reaction is to refuse, as he usually does when Cece or Lily try to present him with trappings of their luxurious life that he feels he doesn’t deserve. But he cannot deny the encouragements his father gives him: it would be good for him and his writing to see more of the world, and didn’t he used to dream of these places when he was a boy anyway? Nor can he deny the prodding of sister, for she is desperate to go, but Father is much more likely to agree if he knows that Dan is going with her. 

And, there’s that voice in his head, the one that sounds like his best friend, that tells him, “Who cares how you got it? What matters is that you take the chance that’s been given to you.”

And so, Dan finds himself on a steamship to cross the Atlantic, hoping that he is ultimately running towards something, rather than away. 

* * *

Vanessa’s first feeling as she disembarks her train in New York is one of relief. As she walks through the halls of Grand Central Station, she knows without a doubt that coming was the right decision.

Concord had become too stifling to stay, she avoided Rosewood, avoiding Dan at all possible costs, and she knew that she wouldn’t be able to stay at Amagansett much longer. Cece had not been subtle in her implications to Vanessa of needing to marry well, so she dreaded the day when the old lady found out that she had rejected an offer.

Plus, for all her grumbling, Vanessa knew how fond Cece was of Dan (and Jenny too), and therefore would not take kindly to the news that Vanessa had hurt him with her refusal of his hand. 

She pleads her case with Rufus, and he helps her make the arrangements to stay in New York City. Vanessa had thought to reach out to her elder sister, Ruby, who had left for the city two years before Vanessa’s return to Concord, but she had received word from her sister that she had gone west, swept up in the mythic promises of adventure and gold in California. Thankfully, Rufus has several connections made through his career and travels, and is happy to facilitate Vanessa’s venture. He seems to sense her eagerness to leave is linked to a quarrel with his son, but he is kind enough not to pry. Despite whatever she and Dan may be to each other, Vanessa is grateful that she can always rely on Rufus to be her family. 

So, upon her arrival in the city, she makes her way to the address Rufus had given. He has a friend, Mrs. Nyquist, who runs a boarding house for young ladies, with a special place in her heart for young artists—she had been a musician herself, and enjoyed a career as an operatic soprano before marrying and having children. She ran a respectable home, Rufus had assured her, and was also in need of a governess to teach her daughters, ages eight and five, respectably, so Vanessa could earn her keep and not have to rely on the Humphreys’ charity or anyone else’s while she chased her dream. 

She feels her excitement build as she navigates the city streets, lugging her carpet bag with her. Vanessa had spent her life dreaming and talking of going places, having new experiences, immersing herself in a city teeming with life and possibility, and now here she was. The elation at being in such a place lightens her heart and quickens her step until finally, she arrives at her destination.

Just as she’s lifting her fist to knock on the front door, it swings open, and Vanessa is brought up short by a startling pair of hazel eyes.

The owner of the merry eyes smiles warmly. “Hello,” she says. 

It takes Vanessa a moment to remember how to speak. “Hello,” she finally says, “I’m -”

“Vanessa Abrams, is that you?” Another voice sounds from within the house and then in the doorway are two little girls, flanked by a statuesque woman that could only be Mrs. Nyquist. “Welcome! This is Kitty and Mae,” she introduces the girls, placing a hand on each head as she announces their names. 

The appearance of Mrs. Nyquist and her girls spurs the woman with the hazel eyes down the steps. Even though Vanessa knows she is meant to be listening to her new landlady, she cannot look away from those eyes, which also stay locked on hers, humor sparkling behind them. 

“I see you’ve met Miss Burke,” she hears Mrs. Nyquist say, as she watches the blonde woman, back away, and finally turn and exit out the gate. “Very accomplished...We have a lot of interesting people here,” she continues, leading Vanessa inside, “artists, intellectuals, Europeans, you will never be bored.”

Vanessa finally finds her voice, “I can’t imagine I will be.”

“Now I must tell you,” Mrs. Nyquist says seriously as she leads Vanessa through the halls. “I run a respectable home with many young women, so I do not permit gentleman callers.”

“Oh, you won’t have any trouble from me,” Vanessa promises emphatically. 

“Very good,” her new landlady smiles warmly, “Rufus did speak very highly of you, and your talent. Now, let me show you to your room.”

Still, all throughout Mrs. Nyquist’s tour and introductions, Vanessa feels a persistent fluttering in her stomach, a feeling that began as soon as she met those disarming eyes. 

It’s a feeling she cannot name until hours later, in her new bed, hearing the bustling of the city below her window, despite the late hour. 

It feels like a beginning. 

* * *

_If you’re going to be sad, you might as well be sad in Paris_ , Jenny had written him in her last missive, once again imploring him to rejoin her and Cece on their European tour. He had been keeping to himself for a while now, but he was weary of it, of the loneliness. So here he was, walking along the promenade, where the housekeeper said they would be, searching the carriages on the boulevard for familiar faces.

He hasn’t been walking for too long when he hears a shriek of “Dan! Stop the carriage! Dan!” 

He turns in time to see a blonde blur streaking towards him. His sister launches herself at him and he catches her on instinct, twirling her around like she was twelve years old again. 

She giggles wildly, and Dan smiles wide in spite of himself, in spite of the melancholy that had taken hold of him during his time abroad. He sets her down on her feet. “Wait, let me get a look at you,” he says, surveying her seriously before concluding: “No, you can’t possibly be my baby sister, you look far too grown up.”

“Oh hush,” she smacks him on the chest. “Come,” she takes him by the arm, “you must say hello to Grandmama.”

He does so by jumping onto the rails of the carriage and kissing Cece impishly on the cheek, delighting in vexing his step-grandmother. 

It’s only after he pulls away to dodge Cece’s fan when he notices another passenger.

He hears a derisive sniff, followed by, “Nice of you to finally make an appearance, Humphrey.” 

He turns towards the familiar voice. “ _My dear lady disdain_ ,” he bows low, and kisses her hand. “The pleasure is all mine, Miss Waldorf.”

Blair harrumphs but extends her hand all the same. 

“Oh, come up here and sit, Daniel,” Cece instructs imperiously, “there’s no need to hang onto the carriage like a hooligan.”

He and Jenny both laugh, but he obliges, taking the empty seat next to his little sister. 

Jenny talks his ear off for the rest of the ride down the Champs Elysees, telling him of the sights she’s seen, the parties she’s attended, but most of all, of Hypatia Deceaux, the esteemed Parisian dressmaker who has taken Jenny under her wing. He wants to listen, and does try, having missed Jenny’s chatter while he’d been away, but he keeps being distracted, his gaze drifting to the young woman sitting across from him. Had she always been that pretty?

“Miss Waldorf has been kind enough to be my companion,” Cece offers, “since you so callously abandoned us in Florence.”

He smiles, sheepish, “My apologies, Cece, for being so dreadfully flighty, but I assure you, that I am at your complete disposal now.”

“Then you should be going to the Thorpe’s ball!” Jenny exclaims eagerly. “Madame Deceaux requires my help that evening, but someone should go to keep Blair company.”

He glances at Blair, and her eyes narrow. Her face seems to be turning red, presumably with rage at the thought of spending an evening with him socially. 

“Miss Waldorf is not wanting for company,” Cece interjects, “not if Charles Bass has anything to say about it.”

Dan’s eyebrows go up. “Bass is in town?”

Dan and the rest of his family had met Chuck Bass years ago, through Nate, who had befriended him at school after leaving St. Jude’s. Dan had disliked him almost immediately, for his pompous attitude and the way he had leered at Dan’s sisters, as if they were possessions rather than people. Bass was indeed obscenely wealthy, but Blair herself was comfortably situated. Why would she even give him the time of day?

“Yes,” Blair confirms haughtily. “Chuck doesn’t abhor elegant society like others might, Humphrey,” 

Dan has to work very hard to suppress his snort. He doubts Cece would be very tolerant if he and Blair were to have one of their infamous disputes right here in the middle of Paris. 

“I’d be happy to attend,” Dan says, looking Blair right in the eye. “I’ll wear my best silk.”

“I’d suggest you let your sister take you shopping,” Blair retorts, “I cannot imagine your current fine silk would be sufficient.”

Her response is so righteously her—a classic Blair Waldorf _bon-mot_ — that Dan cannot help but laugh. Blair looks almost pleased. 

He’s only been at the Thorpe’s for less than half an hour before deciding that coming here was a mistake. Dan had hated parties like these back home, and these were just more of the same, with some of the same people even, and they always followed the same pattern. 

The young women and their mothers would eye him like a piece of marriageable prey for the first part of the evening, circling about and staring him down in a way that makes the back of his neck prickle. And then, someone would whisper in their ears, and the hiss of “musician’s boy” would spread throughout the room until he was invisible once more. 

He had put off coming in as long as he could, starting the evening in the company of a friend he had met during his travels. Aaron Rose was an artist, also from America, here in Europe to benefit from the masters. He knew that Aaron had also grown up amongst the societally privileged, but Dan could at least count on him for some decent conversation and to know the best cafes in the city, though now that Dan thinks on it, he may have overindulged. At least now, he’s had too much wine to much care about the predatory would-be matchmakers at this party. 

Dan is already planning to slink away when he catches a glimpse of a familiar face across the ballroom, and he remembers why he even bothered to come out tonight in the first place. 

“Waldorf!” he calls out as he approaches. 

Blair looks over in his direction, and her face, which was set in a pretty picture of polite interest, falls into a look of utter contempt. 

“Humphrey,” she answers coldly.

“Care for some champagne?” he asks, resolving to counter her stoicism with his false mirth, and snatches two flutes off a nearby tray.

She glances down at his hands then back up, thoroughly unimpressed. “I waited an hour for you,” she says plainly. 

Dan is shocked by that, he didn’t think she would care whether he came or not. “Come now, Saint Waldorf,” he mockingly strikes a pose like the society dandies littered about the ballroom (not unlike the one he had just seen Blair dancing with), “I did take your advice and let Jenny dress me.”

Her eyes sweep over him calculatingly, making Dan feel oddly exposed. “Adequate, but that ring is ridiculous,” she nods curtly towards his right hand. 

Dan compulsively brings his hand to his chest, an act of defense. “Vanessa gave me this ring,” he says softly. 

Blair’s mask of anger falls somewhat. “I feel sorry for you. I really do,” she says, the thread of honesty in her voice nearly enough to shatter him, “I just wish you bore it better.”

His jaw tenses. “I don’t desire your pity, Blair.”

“ _You have no reason, I do it freely_ ,” he can’t help his snort of amusement at her reference. “But just when was the last time you actually wrote anything?”

He scowls. “What’s it to you?”

“You are in _Paris_ , one of the greatest cities in the world for creating. And you’re dithering away all your time and opportunity by insisting on being lazy, faulty, and miserable.”

He bristles at the jibe, and bites back. “And just what are you doing with your time in Paris, Waldorf? I mean, other than planning how you’re going to spend Chuck Bass’ fortune. Chuck Bass, ladies and gentlemen!” He abruptly lifts his flute in the air in a mockery of a toast, sending champagne flying through the air. He turns on his heel and flees the scene quickly, but not without seeing the hurt and fury writ across Blairs face. Maybe he should feel guilty about that, but for now he is too drunk to care. 

The next morning he’s woken from his hangover by his little sister hitting him with a pillow. 

“Chrisopher Columbus, Jen,” he grumbles. 

“You need to apologize to Blair,” Jenny says firmly, “she’s been in a dreadful mood all day.”

He rolls over shielding himself from his sister’s attack. “Why would you even care?”

“Because she’s my friend, so when my brother does something ghastly I should make sure he makes it right.” She tugs on his arm, making him face her. “Plus, when she’s in a bad mood she makes the rest of us in the house miserable, and you know Grandmama is a handful enough as it is.”

Dan sighs, “Fine, fine, just - let me have some coffee first?”

Per his sister’s urgings, Dan rallies himself, pushing through the pounding in his head enough to bathe, dress, and visit the flower stall around the corner. But since his choices from the previous night leave him rather sluggish, Blair has already departed on errands by the time he’s pulled himself together. He decides to wait in the foyer, so he can be sure not to miss her, passing the time by walking carefully along the lines made by the tiled floor and diligently ignoring Dorota’s glares. 

“I hope this loitering isn’t a habit of yours, Humphrey.”

“Blair,” he turns around too quickly, then catches himself, “I was waiting for you, actually.”

One eyebrow arches, but the rest of her face remains stony.

“Miss Waldorf, please allow me to apologize for last night.” He thrusts the flowers forward, silently cursing his own awkwardness. “My behavior was inexcusable.”

“It was,” she agrees, unmoved. 

“I am sorry, Blair. And you were right,” he looks down, studying the tiles he had been tracing all morning, “I’ve spent most of my life dreaming of travelling here and now that I have I’ve been...wasting it, and I should like to do better.” He glances up tentatively to see her stance soften. “And since we are to be under the same roof for a while, I would like us to be friends.” He continues with a wry smile, “I would hate for you to poison my food or smother me with a pillow while I sleep.”

The corners of her lips twitch up, and she finally reaches out, much more gracefully than he had done, and takes the lilies out of his hand. “For the record, I do prefer peonies.”

“I’ll remember that for the next time I put my foot in my mouth.”

“So, any minute now?” 

He laughs, knowing from the way she teases that he is forgiven, making him foolhardy enough to ask: “I did hear of a new gallery exhibition at the palace, if you would care to join me this afternoon?”

“I have calls to make this afternoon,” she answers, looking vaguely disappointed, “and then I will be accompanying Cece to the opera. It’s _Barbiere_ tonight.”

“Ah, I do enjoy myself some Rossini, though you probably wouldn’t appreciate if I came along.”

She hums, nonchalant, fingering a petal from the bouquet in her hand. “It is very funny. Even you couldn’t kill that much comedy.”

He narrows his eyes, assessing her anew, “Then I shall be there.”

She nods in assent, then breezes past him, “Until tonight, Humphrey.”

He looks over his shoulder to watch her climbing up the stairs. “Tonight,” he echoes quietly to himself. 

* * *

Vanessa’s time in New York flies by her. Days turn to weeks, weeks turn to months, and she spins busily through all of it, caught up in teaching her charges, seeking work from theater managers, and absorbing all the art and culture she can take. And luckily for Vanessa, she finds a friend to be her partner in the latter quest. 

Several weeks into her stay in New York, she finally meets the blonde again, after finally selling one of her little plays as an intermezzo to a manager at the Bowery. Well, it’s less like a meeting and more like a crashing. 

“Oh! I’m so sorry!” Vanessa exclaims, after dashing headlong into the other woman. “That’s what I get for - Oh! It’s you!” The blonde’s eyebrows go up. “No I mean - “ Vanessa claps a hand to her forehead, and takes a breath, “Hi,” she finally says, mortified, “I’m Vanessa. Abrams.” 

“Hello, Miss Abrams,” she warmly replies, “no apology necessary, I should have been paying attention to where I was going.” She offers her hand for a shake, “Olivia Burke.”

“Pleasure to finally meet you,” Vanessa says, shaking her hand. “I don’t think we’ve met since I first crashed into you a few weeks ago.”

Olivia laughs, “I suppose not. But I do see you dashing about, you always seem to be working.”

“Money is the aim of my mercenary existence.”

Olivia tilts her head, looking at her curiously, “No one has ink-stains on their hands like yours just out of a desire for money.”

Vanessa ducks her head, caught. “Well, it’s up to me to support myself you see, but the writing is what keeps me going.” 

Olivia returns her smile, and Vanessa thinks she really is quite beautiful. “I know just what you mean. I’m an actress myself, hence the odd hours you’ve no doubt notice I keep. But, I’m in rehearsals for a new production now, so hopefully we’ll see more of each other during the day.”

It’s at that point that Mrs. Nyquist breezes past, “Vanessa, Kitty and Mae are waiting for you!”

She jumps, “Oh, right, my students - I should go.” She makes her way to the stairs, then turns around, “Nice to officially meet you Miss Burke.”

“Olivia,” she corrects her. “The pleasure is all mine, Miss Abrams.”

“Vanessa,” she corrects in return, biting back a smile. 

In the following weeks, Vanessa comes to know Olivia Burke better. As it turns out, their respective rooms are right across the hall from each other, and while Olivia remains on a rehearsal schedule for the daylight hours (for a production of _Twelfth Night_ , she reports), the young women are afforded plenty of time to chat, and become fast friends. Vanessa doesn’t think she’s made a friend this easily since she first met Serena. 

They share their passions of storytelling, Vanessa as the aspiring playwright, Olivia as the professional performer she is. Vanessa also learns that Olivia was born in Germany, then emigrated to New York with her family when she was a child. Vanessa would never have guessed, given how pristine Olivia’s English seems to be, but when she talks of home she gets a nostalgic kind of lilt to her voice. Her family is far away now, similar to Vanessa. Her parents had chosen to settle further west in the Ohio territory, while her elder sister moved back to Germany with her husband and children. The two young women find a kinship in each other, both being separated from their families. 

Oliva also, by virtue of her profession, is happy to assist Vanessa in her artistic pursuits, giving her names of helpful theater managers, crew members, and other amenable thespians. She decrees that the best education Vanessa could hope to have is to see as many plays as possible, and so they endeavor to go to as many performances as they can manage. Luckily, due to Olivia’s connections, they are often able to get free admission into the theaters, neither of them minding if they are relegated to standing room only. 

And, finally, after several weeks, Olivia invites Vanessa to see her own performance in _Twelfth Night_. Being a friend of the star, Vanessa is even able to get her own seat, and she sits through all five acts, too bewitched to even move during the intermissions. 

Per Olivia’s invitation, Vanessa waits for her at the stage door after the performance. She bounces on the balls of her feet, nervous all of a sudden. 

“Hi!” Olivia greets her brightly when she emerges. “So, what did you think?”

Vanessa gushes. She had loved it all: the sets, the costumes, the staging, the sheer number of people all working together to produce something...completely magical. 

“...And your Viola was _captivating_ ,” she concludes enthusiastically, forgetting herself for a moment. 

“I’m so glad you enjoyed it,” Olivia says, taking her hand. Vanessa feels warmth spread through her. 

“I almost wish this night didn’t have to end,” she confesses. 

Olivia grins. “Who says it has to yet?” She starts down the street, pulling Vanessa with her. “Come on, I know a place.”

Olivia takes her to a cozy pub a few blocks down from the theater. Vanessa is immediately taken by the liveliness and energy of the place. Following Olivia’s lead, she makes her way down the stairs into the establishment, wide-eyed, not wanting to miss a thing. 

Halfway through their descent, a young man comes up to them, speaking animatedly with words she doesn’t recognize.

She glances over at Olivia, who despite her bilingual background is equally lost. “Sorry,” she apologizes breathlessly, “I only speak English.”

The young man only laughs and offers his hand, “Dance, come dance,” he requests. 

Olivia catches her eye, and they share a grin before joining the man in a circle of other dancers around the floor. Vanessa’s ever-wandering eyes spot a band in the corner, and they strike up a merry tune, and then she’s dancing. 

Vanessa hasn’t a clue of the steps, but it doesn’t matter, she lets herself be lost in the flood of movement, shuffling with the rest of the circle, kicking up her heels with the young man from the stairs, laughing as he twirls her around. 

Olivia catches her on one turn, and they prance together for a bar, clinging to each other through their giggles before being swept away in the current again. 

They dance for what feels like hours, lost in the crowd, but through all of it, she can spot Olivia, shining brightly, more full of life than any other in the room. 

Vanessa has never felt so free. 

Of course, the opening of _Twelfth Night_ means that the two young women go back to seeing less of each other, their busy schedules being so inverse with one another. But one morning, Vanessa emerges from her room to find a gift laid at her door. 

It’s a collection of Shakespeare's plays: 3 volumes, beautifully bound in green leather with delicately gilded spines and covers. Vanessa has never seen such a lovely book outside the walls of Amagansett’s library, and has certainly never owned one for herself before. 

There is also a handwritten note tucked just inside the front cover of the first volume. 

> _For the writer ‘cross the hall:_
> 
> _Because you enjoyed the play so much the other night, I wanted you to have this. It will help you study character and paint it with your pen. I would love to read what you’re writing, if you’ll trust me. I promise honesty and whatever intelligence I can muster._
> 
> _Yours,_
> 
> _Olivia_

Apart from submitting them to playhouses, Vanessa had not shared her work with anyone since she had left. Back home, the only opinion she had trusted was Dan’s, because he had understood her, and always understood the story she was trying to tell, the message she was trying to convey.

Everything she’s written since she left has been entirely without Dan, without his stories and characters, without his advice. She will still hear his voice from time to time, giving critique or encouragement, but the idea of letting someone else into that process—it’s more than a little terrifying.

Maybe it is time she trust someone new. 

One night when Olivia does not have a performance, she makes good on her promise to take Vanessa to the opera. Olivia, for her part, is not much of a fan of the Italian contribution to the genre, thus she and Vanessa debate the show all the way back to the boarding house.

“But that’s why I loved it! So lurid and preposterous,” Vanessa says merrily as she removes her coat and deposits it on her bed. “Still,” she admits, calling across the hallway, “I would like to have understood the words.”

“Oh, so you mean to tell me you're not fluent in Italian?” Olivia teases, leaning against the doorway to her room. 

Vanessa shakes her head. “No, but I have a - a friend back home who is a pretty good hand at it. He studied it in school.”

“Just as well. Italians may make opera, but they do _not_ make art.”

“Oho! That’s right. I forgot that I was in the company of a grand German lady,” Vanessa says playfully. 

Olivia shakes her head and laughs. “I don’t know about _grand_ , but I would take Schumann over Rossini and Goethe over any Italian librettist any day.”

Vannessa hums, “Dan - my friend had a fondness for Goethe, but he definitely didn’t know it in German.”

Oliva gasps, mock-affronted, “But that is the only way to hear it! Wait,” She holds up her hands, “Stay right there, don’t move.”

While Olivia vanishes into her room, Vanessa stays rooted in her place, in front of her bedroom door, wondering why her face feels so flushed, even though the evening chill wasn’t nearly as cold as she thought it would be.

Olivia returns, book in hand. “See how this compares to your Figaro,” she says with a smirk. And then she begins to read. 

Kennst du das Land? wo die Citronen blühn,  
Im dunkeln Laub die Gold-Orangen glühn,  
Ein sanfter Wind vom blauen Himmel weht,   
Die Myrte still und hoch der Lorbeer steht,  
Kennst du es wohl? Kennst du es wohl? Dahin! Dahin  
O mein Geliebter, möcht' ich mit dir, o mein Geliebter, ziehn.

Vanessa listens to the rise and fall of pitch in Olivia's voice, watches her face animate with the meaning of the poetry. Vanessa has seen Olivia do all manner of performing in English since they’ve become friends, but this, watching her recite in her native tongue, feels like something else all together, something much more intimate. Vanessa is entranced. 

Once finished, Olivia closes the book and looks at her with a quirked eyebrow. “So?” she asks.

She blinks several times, coming back to reality before she can manage to respond: “What if I loved Goethe and the opera?”

Oliva laughs lowly, “Then I would praise you for being a strong-minded woman.”

Vanessa can feel the heat flood her face. She ducks her head, smiling. “You know, spending time with you is the most fun I’ve had since I left home.” 

She glances up shyly to see Olivia looking back at her, her gaze tender. “Me too,” she says. 

Olivia is seated in her favorite armchair in the corner of the parlor, shuffling through the papers in Vanessa’s portfolio. Vanessa watches her anxiously, seated across from her, leaning her elbows on her knees, and trying with all her might not to jiggle her feet or bite her nails as she is wont to do.

“So?” she asks nervously, unable to wait any longer. 

Olivia looks up at her, and bites her lip before finally delivering the blow. “I do not - I do not like them,” she says softly, apologetic. 

Vanessa cannot quite absorb the information. Her brow furrows in confusion, “What - what do you mean? They’re...they’re the same kinds of melodramas you perform all the time.”

“I do because they are jobs that pay,” Olivia answers, “I do not do it because I think they’re good.”

Vanessa is taken aback by the other woman’s bluntness; she desperately wishes to retreat, or to reverse the clock and never have this conversation. 

“I don’t mean to offend you, Vanessa,” Olivia says gently. “But,” she continues, “do you have anyone to take you seriously? To talk about your work?”

That question hurts just as much as the feedback had. She didn’t. Not since Dan. Dan had been the only one she had trusted, and they had both ruined it: their promise to understand each other, to trust each other, broken. 

“Well, then, what,” Vanessa starts defensively, “what would you have me write? What would you rather I be than what sells? I am certainly not Shakespeare.”

“Good,” Olivia says, a smile playing at her lips, “we already have one of him.”

Vanessa shakes her head, in no mood for a joke, “I am a good writer,” she asserts, “I’ve written plenty of things that have been well received.”

“I don’t deny that you’re talented—I can see it, but,” Olivia leans forward, “this writing here: it’s like you are trying to write what you think everyone else wants to hear. But what do you want to _say_? These pages in front of me - they do not sound like you.”

Vanessa bristles. “And how would you know what I sound like? We barely know each other. Look,” she continues, unable to stop the venom now that it’s out, “we are not friends, or - or anything else, we are just hallmates, neighbors, strangers. So, I would thank you to keep your opinions to yourself from now on.” She snatches up her portfolio and storms out, trying not to dwell on the devastated look on Olivia’s face.

* * *

It’s one of the rare days where Jenny is at the house all day, but she is far from idle, working at a piece of hand embroidery in the drawing room. On the other hand, idling seems to be all Dan does, so he whiles away some time with his sister, enjoying distracting her. 

“Oh don’t you have someone else to bother?” she asks, apparently reaching her limit with his lazing about. 

Dan shrugs. “Cece is paying calls, and I haven’t a clue where Blair is.” He then asks, attempting nonchalance, “Where is Waldorf, anyway?”

Jenny sighs, “If she’s not in the house proper, then she’s probably at the old carriage house. She’s made it into a studio of sorts.”

Dan hums. “Maybe I will go bother her then.”

Jenny watches him go with her eyebrows raised. 

Dan does find Blair in her makeshift studio in the gardens, finishing up a still life. 

“Jenny finally tired of you?” she quips, not even bothering to look away from her work. 

“Just so,” he answers cheekily, “and I thought I’d press my company on you for a little while.” He surveys the artwork strewn about the space. “Are these all yours?”

“Most of them. Some of them are Jenny’s from when we first took lessons on arriving in the city, but she quickly found a better way to fill her time.”

“Jen talks little else these days.”

“I’ve noticed,” Blair says drily, making Dan laugh. “Still," she adds, "it’s a good thing to be so immersed in one’s work, I think.”

Dan hums. “My mother was a painter, you know,” he has no idea why he offers this up, only that he has an uncanny feeling that Blair would understand.

Blair glances at him, curious, “You don’t talk about her much. Neither of you do.”

“Jenny was too young to remember much,” he explains, “and I think Father just found it easier to not speak of her at all.”

She nods thoughtfully, “What do you think she’d make of this new movement here in Paris?”

He smiles at the question. “I think she’d love it.” 

“I’m rather inclined to agree,” Blair answers, returning his smile. “But, I can’t say that my hand is suited to the style.”

Dan hums. “Painting is a new pursuit for you though, is it not? I had rather thought you would be apprenticing yourself like Jenny. Following in your lady mother’s footsteps.”

Blair scoffs. “I’m afraid this European tour put an end to that.” She moves to her work table and starts shuffling through the sketches on it. “Rome took all the vanity out of me, and watching your sister work here in Paris has made it clear that I will never be a genius.” She shakes her head, resolute. “I want to be great, or nothing.”

“Perhaps you just haven’t found what you’re great at yet,” he suggests gently. 

Blair looks at him quizzically. 

He shrugs, “You know more about fashion and art than anyone else I know.”

The corners of her mouth twitch up, “Even Vanessa?”

The mention of her name doesn’t sting anymore. Odd. “Vanessa’s never been one for fashion, but you— you are,” he pauses, searching for the right word, “a dictator of good taste.”

She laughs. “I don’t think one can make a vocation out of that.”

“Maybe you can.”

She’s silent for a moment, lost in thought, then she shakes her head. “I think now I will just polish up my other accomplishments and become an ornament to society.”

“Ah,” Dan crosses his arms. “Then that explains Chuck Bass.”

She looks at him sharply. “Don’t make fun.”

“I said his _name_ ,” he replies innocently. 

She snorts—a delightful sound of amusement he had never heard from her before, and finds himself wanting to hear again—and shakes her head at him, noncommittal as she wipes down her brushes. “He’ll do the job well enough. He has the money, and,” she concludes with a smirk, “he doesn’t have any siblings to break up the inheritance.”

Dan blinks at her, his brow furrowing. 

“What?” she asks when she notices him studying her. 

“It just sounds a bit mercenary, coming from you,” he says. “As I recall, you were more of a romantic than Serena was.”

She sighs. “Yes, well, luckily the love of her life just so happened to be a van der Bilt. As for me I believe that we aren’t slaves to our emotions. Love isn’t just something that happens to us.”

Dan’s mouth twitches. “I think the poets may disagree.”

Blair scoffs. “I am a woman. I can’t afford to be a poet, even a poorly dressed one such as yourself.”

That makes him laugh. “I’m flattered that you would call me a poet.”

She huffs. “The fact remains, regardless of whatever privilege or wealth you think I possess, I am still a woman, and therefore marriage will always be an economic prospect. It may not be for you, but it certainly is for me.”

Dan thinks of those predatory packs of young ladies and mothers, and then of his father, who had been teetering on the brink of poverty before marrying Lily, and he supposes that marriage is an economic prospect for everyone, whether or not they realize it. But what does Blair mean by her privilege and wealth? He’s about to ask, when her head snaps towards the window. 

“Chuck is here.” She pats distractedly at her hair and her clothes, tugging on her artist’s smock. “Would you?” she asks, turning her back to him and gesturing at the ties. 

“Of course,” he answers, then immediately winces at his word choice, cautious of taking liberties. He carefully undoes the fastenings down her back, then the knot at her waist, trying to keep his hands from shaking. He doesn’t think he’s been this close to her since when they were children, when Serena had insisted she and Blair switch roles in the Snow White play, and thus making them kiss during the pivotal scene. They had both complained terribly about it, but he remembers her lips had felt so soft, and he remembers the little gasp that had escaped her the moment they touched. Dan wonders idly what it would feel like to kiss her now, if her lips would still feel as soft on his as they appear, if she would make that sound again. 

Once freed, Blair quickly removes the smock from her shoulders, stepping away and tossing the fabric on a nearby table. She turns and gives him a brief tight smile, “Thank you.”

He nods, his mouth dry, fearing that what he’s just been thinking of is written all over his face. 

Blair then moves briskly across the room to the peg where her cloak hangs. She turns to him one last time before she steps out of the studio. “How do I look?”

He takes a minute to drink in the sight of her: the deep brown of her eyes, the bow of her lips, the flush on her cheeks. “Beautiful,” he says softly then clears his throat. “You are beautiful.”

She beams at him, shining like she’s lit from within, and for a minute, Dan forgets how to breathe. 

And then she’s gone, making her way across the garden to the drive, where the Bass carriage is waiting.

He watches her go from the window, feeling something almost like regret clench in his chest. 

* * *

In the weeks following the conversation in the drawing room, Vanessa keeps to herself. Everytime she runs into Olivia in the halls (which is far too often for Vanessa’s liking), the blonde has a terribly sad, hangdog look on her face. 

Vanessa chastises herself for it. This is what she always does, when she’s backed into a corner, she punches back too hard and destroys everything. It’s what she did to Dan, her oldest and fondest friend, who now won’t so much as respond to a letter. And now she’s lost the only true friend she’s found since coming to New York. 

Vanessa is stewing in her glumness when she receives even more bad news in a letter from Rufus. Eric’s health had worsened greatly since she’d seen him last, and now the family was gathering round him. All the family that remained in the country, at least. 

> _We do not wish to pull you away from your wonderful new life if you desire to stay. But, we would like to have as much family around us as we can, should the worst come._

Vanessa takes her leave of Mrs. Nyquist and buys a train ticket back to Concord as soon as she possibly can. If Dan refuses to talk to her, at least she can be there for his brother in his time of need. And, she can leave her failings in New York behind her. 

She arrives back at Rosewood to the familiar scene of the Humphreys seated around their kitchen table. Lily and Rufus immediately embrace her, followed then by Serena’s little ones, now big enough to run and wrap themselves around their Auntie V’s skirts. Vanessa had left before they were even born, but Serena and Nate’s twins were always overflowing with love for whomever came into the family kitchen. Vanessa feels heartened by their simple affection. 

“They’ve gotten so big,” she exclaims to Serena before pulling her into a hug.

“Don’t I know it,” she laughs, in reply, squeezing Vanessa tightly. “Oh, I’ve missed you, V, since you and Blair have been gone I’ve been despairing for good company.”

“Well, I’m here now,” Vanessa promises, then she pulls away and asks more seriously, “How is he?”

Serena’s face falls slightly, storm clouds moving over her characteristic sunny disposition. “He’s in reasonably good spirits, though he won’t hear any talk of telling Dan and Jenny.”

“But -” she casts a nervous glance over to Rufus and Lily, now conversing quietly with each other at the table, “but shouldn’t they know?”

Serena swallows, “It hasn’t come to that. At least not yet.”

Vanessa nods, but doesn’t say what they’re both thinking: that if it should come to that, it may be too late. 

“Mother and I,” Serena begins, “we were thinking about taking him back to the seaside. To get him stronger. It’s worked before.”

“I think that’s an excellent idea,” Vanessa replies, “How can I help?”

Vanessa helps, as it turns out, by going with Lily and Eric to Plymouth in Serena’s stead, at least for the first couple of weeks. Nate had been called away on some family business of his own - something to do with his cousin serving in Congress. He was on his way back to Concord soon, but Serena didn’t wish to leave the children until he could be there for them.

And so, Lily and Vanessa set out with Eric for Plymouth, with Serena and Rufus to join them later. Their first order of business on arrival, they decide, is to move a bed into the downstairs parlor of the rented cottage, making it into a sick room once they discover that Eric is too weak to go up and down the stairs. 

Lily, Vanessa, Larissa, and Lily’s troops of staff take turns nursing Eric through the long nights, watching him breathe in his sleep, cooling his bouts of fever, soothing his coughing fits that wake him and rack his body with spasms. If she were given time to reflect on it, Vanessa would probably find it all too difficult, but the small mercy is that there is no time to dwell. Eric needs her, so she takes what is unbearable, and she bears it. 

In the afternoons, when the sun is high and the air is warmer, Vanessa will take Eric to the beach, pushing him in the bath chair that he hates, but has become necessary for whenever he leaves the cottage. 

Their time on the beach is never very active, but it restores both of their souls, stretching out on a blanket, feeling the warmth of the sun and hearing the crash of the waves, shoring them up for the next battle against their invisible foe. 

Vanessa will often pass the time reading aloud to Eric, or sometimes they will talk, or sometimes they will stay in a comfortable silence. It was one of her favorite things about Eric, he never pushed or pried beyond what one was willing to offer, but there was still something of his spirit that made you feel safe in telling him anything. Vanessa had missed him terribly while she was gone.

On one afternoon in the sun, the friends had lapsed into one of their quiet periods, after Vanessa had read aloud one of her personal favorites, George Eliot. 

“What novelty is worth that sweet monotony where everything is known and loved because it is known?”

Vanessa lets herself sit with that line for a while, rolling it gently around in her brain, when she hears Eric say: 

“You didn’t have to come back, you know.”

She looks down at him, where he’s lying on his back, “What are you talking about? Of course I did,” she rubs his shoulder comfortingly. “I never should have left, really.”

He sits up at that, looking at her curiously, “And here I thought all you’d ever wanted was some adventure.”

She hums, “Perhaps I’ve grown more reflective in my old age.”

He lets out a little huff of laughter. 

There’s another brief silence, the ever present breeze and ocean making their own music. “It was perfect as it was though, wasn’t it? All of us together?” she finally asks, wistful.

“I wouldn’t say _perfect_ ,” Eric answers sagely, “but that doesn’t mean you can’t miss it.”

“I do miss it,” she says, heartfelt. “The six of us...we were all each other needed. We didn’t want for anything else.”

Eric snorts. “Well that’s just not true.” Vanessa squints at him in confusion. “We all had dreams of something more, remember? Our castles in the air? Dan wanted to write novels as great as Dumas, Serena wanted to sail around the globe, I wanted to be a composer and play concert halls like Rufus, Jenny wanted to dress princesses and queens, and Blair...well, she wanted to be the princess,” he laughs. “And you,” he nudges her, “you wanted to run your own theater, write and direct your own plays, don’t you still?”

“I don’t know, I -” she stares down at her hands. “I tried in New York, and I failed.” She thinks of what she ruined there and her heart clenches. “I’ve lost my taste for it, and now,” she sighs, and gazes out over the waves, “I haven’t a clue what I want to do, I don’t know if I have anything left.” 

“You have time to figure it out,” he assures her. 

She looks over at him, her heart breaking. “Oh, Eric,” she says thickly, “I’m being positively beastly aren’t I?”

He shrugs. “Only a little bit.”

She lets out a watery laugh and pulls him into a tight hug, “I’m not letting you go anywhere without a fight,” she promises tearfully. 

“Don’t worry, I’m not giving up just yet.” He rubs her back soothingly before releasing her, “and you shouldn’t either.”

“What do you mean?” 

“Just because one dream didn’t come true doesn’t mean you can’t find another,” he tells her. 

She smirks at him, blinking back her tears. “You really are the smart sibling aren’t you?”

“One of us has to be.”

They both laugh, full-throated, the sea harmonizing beneath them. 

“Promise me,” Eric says, after their laughter has died down, “you won’t give up looking.” He closes his eyes and tilts his head back, feeling the sun on his face. “I am very sick and you must do what I say.”

Vanessa throws herself backwards onto the sand, grumbling. She sees Eric grin out of the corner of her eye.

* * *

The young Humphreys' time in Paris continues to pass in a flurry of activity. Jenny immerses herself fully in her work with Madame Deceaux, and Dan immerses himself in the art happening all around him, and even tags along to events that he had historically abhorred, like Cece’s trips to the opera. Cece of course, complains that these new Italians are positively garish, but Dan rather likes them, he can’t help but think Verdi knows a thing or two about matters of the heart. Dan had always preferred the smaller chamber concerts, like those his father played to the grand spectacles of the stage, but he found himself enjoying the theatricality of it all. And, if Blair happened to be attending as well, so be it. 

Also, by virtue of being a musician’s son, he had a talent for discovering other gatherings of culture outside the opera house walls. In salons all over Paris, talented people were uniting to share in the beautiful things that moved them. Dan finds them captivating and inspiring, and he even manages to persuade Blair to join him at one, then another, and another, knowing that she would delight in evenings devoted entirely to art, music, and literature. And if they keep her away from Chuck Bass for an evening (or five), so be it. 

On one afternoon, the friends take up a post at Jardin du Luxembourg. Blair was kneeling prettily on the quilt they had spread, and was scratching away in the sketchbook she had brought, trading oils and canvas for pencil and paper for the day. 

Dan was sprawled out on the grass nearby, a book in his hands. He mostly read silently to himself, but would occasionally read out a line just because he wanted to know what Blair thought of it. 

Dan was just thinking it was a perfectly pleasant way to spend the day, when Blair interrupted it with a question he’d been dreading. 

“What are you doing, Humphrey?”

“You mean right now?”

“No,” she scoffs, “I mean with your life, what do you mean to do?”

“What would you have me do?” he parrots back, unable to stop himself from being deflective. 

She takes a deep breath, as if she’s bracing herself for battle. “I would have you publish something and make a name for yourself.”

He sighs and throws an arm over his face, “Come on, Blair.”

“I mean it,” she holds firm, refusing to back down. “Actually publish something. Stop hiding behind fake names and excuses. Lily doesn’t need your protection. You’re too good a writer to hide under a bushel.”

He moves his arm away and glances up at her in shock. “You think so?”

“Serena roped me into those plays too, remember?” She smiles down tentatively at him. “You were a compelling storyteller, much as I hate to admit it.”

He sits up and gets to his feet, needing to move, “Vanessa wrote most of those.”

“Not before she came back to Concord,” Blair replies. “And she didn’t write the stories you submitted to Nate.”

Dan halts his pacing to look at her. “You read those?” 

Blair rises to her feet. “They were mostly ridiculous as plots go but,” she shrugs, “there was a thread of truth in them that was...insightful.” She steps toward him and hands over the sketch she had been working on.

Dan’s eyes scan over the page, surprised to discover that it’s of him, made by her hand with the time and care of the entire afternoon. 

He tries to form an eloquent, well-informed compliment but the best he can come up with is: “You’re very good.”

She smiles at him in thanks, a real genuine one, not the socialite’s mask that he’d come to know through growing up with her. “So are you,” she replies, “that’s what I’ve been trying to get through your thick skull, Humphrey.”

She startles him into laughter, then he realizes how close he is standing to her. He takes a step back and clears his throat, “So where is Bass, today?”

“He’s in London on business,” she says, matter-of-fact, walking back towards her quilt, “he should be back tomorrow.”

“And you’re really going to go through with it?”

She stares down at the pad of paper still in her hands, averting his gaze. “He hasn’t made me an offer yet. It’s not like I’ve said yes.”

“But you will? If he gets down properly on one knee?”

She bites her lip, and Dan’s eyes fall to her mouth. “Why shouldn’t I?”

He looks down at the paper in his hands, his thumb grazing over the strokes her own hand had made just minutes before.

“Don’t marry him,” he pleads softly. 

Blair’s head snaps up, “What?”

He stares back at her, gathers his voice, and says it again, a little more firmly. “Don’t marry him.”

“Why?” she asks, stock-still. 

He steps forward, takes a jagged breath, “You know why.”

She shakes her head, “No, no.”

“Blair—” he begins, reaching out to her, but she backs away from him. 

“No, stop it,” she holds a hand in front of herself, as if to ward him away. “You’re being cruel.”

Her accusation stops him cold. “How?” he asks in honest confusion.

Her friendly demeanor of the past weeks has fallen away, replaced with a vehemence he hasn’t seen since they were children. “I have been second to others my whole life in everything. First it was Serena, then Vanessa too. And I will not be the person you settle for just because you cannot have her,” her lower lip starts to tremble as she shakes her head. “I won’t - I won’t do it. I won’t. Not when I’ve spent my entire life loving you.”

She tosses her sketchpad aside and stalks away from him. Dan watches her go, stricken, still clutching her drawing in his hand. 

His conversation with Blair hangs heavy on him for the rest of the day. He stays out all night, wandering the city, avoiding Cece’s house and one particular young lady staying there. Eventually, Dan has to return, but he is still left bewildered by Blair’s admission. He does not know how to face her. 

As it turns out, he needn’t have worried. When he comes down for dinner the next evening, only Cece and Jenny are at the table. 

“Where is Blair?” Jenny asks, innocently. 

“She went to visit her father in Lyon. She’ll be there for some time,” Cece says with pursed lips. Dan and Jen don’t ask more, after a decade and a half, they know Celia Rhodes’ _speak not of this_ face very well. 

Dan would be relieved of the reprieve from Blair’s presence, but for the sinking feeling in his stomach that knows she’s only gone to visit her father in order to tell him about an offer of marriage. An offer from Chuck Bass. 

Dan passes the following day in a fog. He thinks back over their years of friendship, of teasing and challenging and growing with each other, and he sees Blair’s feelings in a new light, which causes him to examine his own, and his behavior with it. And after all that, Dan is left with one paralyzing, all-consuming thought:

How could he have been so blind?

Dan does not know how to reconcile the restlessness in him that has taken hold since Blair left Paris, he spends much of it wandering the city by foot, viewing galleries and watching performances and thinking of all the things about them he’d like to share with her. 

After one such day full of failed distraction attempts, Dan returns home to find Jenny in the drawing room.

“You should be in bed,” he chastises his sister, and sits down on the footstool opposite her. “You won’t get well if you keep insisting on working.”

Jenny had been home with a cold all week, but had refused to let it stop her, sitting by the fire and stitching by hand until Dan or Dorota insisted that she rest. 

But Dorota had departed with Blair, another reminder of Dan’s folly. 

“Your concern is commendable, but I’m _fine_ ,” she tells him. But when her eyes flicker up to look at him, he knows she feels it too, the memory of their mother and brother hanging heavy between them. Jenny looks back down at the stitching on her lap. “Another letter came from Father today,” she says softly. “He didn’t say anything about Eric.”

Dan nods, and says carefully: “He probably just doesn’t want us to worry.”

Jenny shrugs, picking at the cloth on her lap. “Grandmama says we can’t be of use to him from here anyways.”

“Well you know, Cece,” he continues in his best impression of their step-grandmother, “I may not always be right, but I am _never_ wrong.”

Jenny giggles. Then, in what Dan assumes to be an effort to change the subject, she asks: “Would you happen to know why Blair took off so suddenly?”

Dan sighs, “I did what I always do.”

“Which is?”

“Ruin it.”

Jenny looks at him with concern. “How?” she asks gently. 

He sighs. “We got into a quarrel.”

“About Bass?” she asks. 

“Amongst other things.”

Jenny is silent, waiting for him to say something to reveal himself. He feels awkward at the thought of telling her the full scope of their conversation, but still, he says: 

“I just...don’t understand it. I didn’t think she even liked Chuck when we met him.”

“Well, needs must,” Jenny says breezily, resuming her stitching, “that’s why Mrs. Waldorf brought her to us in Italy, so that Cece could help facilitate a match.”

“But that also makes no sense to me,” Dan says, “The Waldorf’s are wealthy in their own right, why would she need to marry?”

Jenny sighs, “It’s not about the money, really - though I suppose it helps. It’s more about the scandal.” She bites her lip, like she’s afraid of saying too much, but when Dan shoots her a look, she continues. “Mr. and Mrs. Waldorf have been separated for a while, yes?”

Dan shrugs. “It’s not that uncommon I hear. I think Father and Lily may be the happy exception.”

“That’s not the scandalous part. Mrs. Waldorf is still keeping a household in Boston supposedly alone...but there has been talk that she has a…” she trails off, trying to be delicate. 

“A...gentleman friend?” Dan suggests. 

Jenny nods. “And remember how Grandmama said that Mr. Waldorf has a home in Lyon? Well...he’s there...with his own gentleman friend.”

Dan’s mouth falls open. “Oh.” Then his brow furrows, “Wait, how do you know all this?”

“I overheard Grandmama talking to Blair when she joined us in Rome.” He looks at her flatly. “What? It’s not my fault her voice carries.”

“ _Jen_.”

“Don’t give me a lecture on gossip, Daniel, you worked for a paper, remember? Plus, it’s not technically gossip, Blair’s knowledge is proof that it’s true.”

Dan shakes his head at his sister’s logic. “How long has it been going on?”

“For some time, the way they talked about it,” Jenny answers, “but the more time passes, the more likely it is that everybody will know about it. And when that happens, Blair will need protection, she can only get that by marrying well. Marrying rich. Hence, Charles Bass.”

“It must be terrible for her,” Dan muses, “having to carry a secret like that.”

“She seems to bear it pretty well.”

An image briefly flashes through his mind: a lonely girl sitting in a hallway. “Blair has always been stronger than she appears.”

Jenny looks at him curiously, then says, “I am just grateful my family appears to be so dreadfully boring. I thank you for not causing me scandal, brother.”

He snorts. “You’re welcome?”

She smiles impishly at him, then grows serious again. “You said ‘amongst other things,’ what else did you and Blair quarrel about?”

Dan shifts, uncomfortable. “She told me...she told me I needed to start writing again.”

Jenny scoffs. “Well I could have told you that. Why on earth haven’t you?”

He shakes his head, “It’s not that simple. I -” he breaks off, gazing into the fire. “I’m afraid it’s been too long. What if after all this time, I’m just...not a writer anymore?” Dan sprawls out on the floor, leaning back against Jenny’s chair. He knows that he is being sullen and self-pitying, and fleetingly thinks that Cece would reprimand him for lazing about so inelegantly, but she is out this afternoon, luckily. 

“You _are_ a writer. You were before anyone knew or paid you.” 

“I don’t know, Jen,” he sighs, rubbing a hand over his face, “I’ve been writing those potboiler rags for so long I’m afraid I don’t know how to do anything else.”

“Then do what Father told us to do. Make it for someone else.”

Dan immediately thinks of Blair, causing another pang of regret in him. He glances up to see Jenny watching him worriedly. 

“Just when,” he starts to say to lighten the mood, “did you become smarter than me?”

“Oh Dan,” she reaches over to pat him fondly on the head, “I’ve always been smarter than you.” 

* * *

Eric keeps his promise to fight. It doesn’t happen all at once, but day by day, bolstered by his mother’s wealth and his family’s love, Eric begins to recover.

He returns from his convalescence at the seaside still weak, but he is strong enough to move about the house, and most importantly, strong enough to walk up and down the staircase from his bed to his piano bench: a distinction that makes all the difference. Being able to play strengthens him further, and eventually, gradually, he moves out of danger. 

Vanessa, along with Serena, Lily, Nate, and Rufus, all watch him with bated breath for a long time after, but he hangs on, with that gentle, everlasting persistence that defines his character. That isn’t to say that he doesn’t oft grow frustrated, with both his family for their hovering, and with himself for the slowness of his recovery, but when he does, music is there to center him. It is on those dark days that Vanessa most wishes Jenny were here, for she could always bring Eric back when he retreated too far into himself.

The true sign of Eric’s recovery, according to Rufus, comes when the young man expresses a desire to go to university. He had been accepted to Harvard months ago, before falling ill, and being homebound so long had made Eric eager to move on, to start over. And quite possibly, he was weary of being made to feel like a patient in his own home.

It takes some persuasion, Lily reluctant to let her son go off into the world after such a scare, but the combined power of Rufus, Serena, and Vanessa convinces her to relent. She concedes under one condition: that Eric stay with a family friend that will watch his health closely.

Vanessa is beyond relieved that Eric is well, but with him recovered, she now finds herself with too much time on her hands. She has always thrived best when she is busy, but now it feels as though her life has come to a stand still. And being back at Rosewood now, with the big beloved house so empty and quiet, she can’t help but mourn everything else she’s lost. 

She spends much of her days over at Rhinebeck. The Archibalds are always welcoming, and their easy company is a balm to Vanessa’s melancholy. Nate is still happily running the _Spectator_ here in Concord, however much his family has other plans. The van der Bilts were an old political family with a great deal of influence in New England, and with the war now over, and Nate coming into his own as a young man, his grandfather was eager to get him into the political power plays of the Reconstruction. Nate, however, had no interest in that kind of public service, and was content to run his small town newspaper, come home everyday to his wife, and raise his children comfortably in the countryside. 

The more Vanessa learns of Nate, the more she is proud to know him, and to count him as part of her family. She also takes comfort in assisting Serena with the care of Daisy and Will, both of them terribly sweet, but far too clever for their own good, even at such a young age. And Serena, it seems, is grateful to have a friend nearby again as well, with her siblings and best friend off in the world. Vanessa finds that she enjoys spending time with both Serena and Nate, and seeing them so happy together does not sting the way it used to. Though she’s not sure why, Vanessa is grateful all the same for the reprieve. 

She thinks of Dan often, wondering how he’s getting on in Europe, a place he’s always dreamed of seeing. She misses him terribly. She used to think that the worst thing that could happen to her was to become a wife, but after the trials of the past couple years, the fear and disappointment and solitude without her best friend to lessen them, she thinks it may be worse to have to live her life without Dan in it. 

She contemplates all this one afternoon in the attic, sitting at Dan’s dusty old writing desk, turning over an old brass key in her hand, a key that had belonged to their little post office in the woods. She’s not sure how long she sits there, staring, until a voice breaks her out of her reverie. 

“Vanessa? Is that you up there?”

Her head shoots up. “Rufus, I didn’t think you’d all be back so soon. How was Cambridge?”

“Oh fine,” he answers, coming into the attic and taking a seat on a trunk across from her. “It is quite lovely this time of year. Though, to be fair, it’s nice to look at any time of year.”

Vanessa chuckles half-heartedly, then asks, “And Eric?”

“He’s doing well,” Rufus nods, “He was eager for his parents to leave so that he might get on with his life.” He smiles. “I think Lil was anxious to leave him alone, but Mrs. Whitney promised to send us regular updates as long as he’s staying with her.”

“Good,” Vanessa says sincerely, “I’m so glad he was able to go.”

“Me too,” Rufus agrees fervently. Then he looks up at Vanessa, studying her closely. “But what of you? What are you doing up here all by yourself?

She shrugs, “I thought to make myself useful, clean this place up a bit,” she sighs, “but I keep finding myself getting distracted.”

She gets up and moves about the room, doing little more than pantomiming the act of organizing. She feels Rufus study her. 

“You’re much too lonely here, Vanessa,” he finally says. “Wouldn’t you like to go back to New York? What about your friend - Olivia? Wasn’t that her name?”

“No,” she replies resignedly, “I ruined our friendship with my temper just as I ruin everything. I’ll probably never see her again anyway.”

“If she’s a sincere friend, I’d bet she would forgive you.”

“I wish that were true,” Vanessa says quietly. She fidgets, pulling at the finger where her father’s ring used to sit. “Dan used to say that my words shoot to kill when I’m angry...and I did let myself get pretty mad at her.” 

Rufus nods understandingly, but doesn’t press her further. “We did get a telegram from Cece today,” he offers, “it was sparing on details, but it appears as though Jenny and Dan will be home sooner than expected. She told us to await their letters.”

“Dan’s coming back?” Vanessa can’t help the aching hope leaking into her voice.

He nods in confirmation. “I know how you’ve missed him.”

“I’ve been thinking that, maybe,” Vanessa starts to pace anxiously, “maybe I was too quick in turning him down.”

“Do you love him?” Rufus asks her gently.

“I think - I think that if he asked me again I would say yes,” Vanessa responds, wringing her hands, knowing that it’s not really an answer. “Do you think he’ll ask me again?”

Rufus looks at her carefully, his forehead creased with confusion. He looks so much like his son in that moment it makes Vanessa’s chest hurt. “But, do you love him?”

She stops pacing, and thinks. “I care more to be loved. I want to be loved.”

Rufus smiles, “That is not the same thing as loving.” It’s as gentle and kind a rebuke as Vanessa had ever received.

“I know,” she answers, “You know I just feel like…” she takes a deep breath, trying to explain herself to herself, her emotion brimming over the more she speaks, “Women: they have minds, and they have souls, as well as just hearts. And they’ve got ambition and they’ve got talent, as well as just beauty. And I’m so sick of people saying that love is just all a woman is fit for. I’m so sick of it! But I’m so -” her voice breaks, “I’m so lonely.”

As she starts to crumple, Rufus embraces her, one hand rubbing her back, the other stroking her hair, like she’s seen him hug Jenny hundreds of times before. The fatherliness of the gesture breaks and mends her heart all at once. 

“It will pass, my dear,” he assures her. “Dan may not be the answer, but you will not have to feel this way forever.”

Vanessa nods, but cannot speak through her sobs, so she just lets herself be comforted.

* * *

In the days following his talk with Jen, Dan decides to take her advice—and their father’s advice—and he writes. Not for himself, but for his family, for his friends, for Blair, however lost to him she may be.

He writes the story of their shared childhood, of love and loss and family that went beyond the ties of blood. Family that you found, chose, and let become an indelible part of your heart. It’s not the epic, sweeping sort of tale Dan used to dream about writing, but it feels real, tangible, truthful. 

He highly doubts it will be worth publishing, but he puts that from his mind, because now that he’s begun, he knows that he needs to see it through. 

He takes up shop in the study overlooking the streets of Paris. It had been woefully neglected during the Humphreys’ stay, but now that only meant that Dan could work there for hours without being disturbed, working late into the night (now it was Jenny’s turn to remind him to rest). 

One day, he’s deep into his work, when he’s surprised by the last voice he expects to hear. 

“So you _are_ writing. When Jenny informed me that’s what you were up here doing I could scarcely believe it.”

Dan whips around. “You’re back,” he blurts out. _Stupid_ , he thinks.

Blair purses her lips as if she’s suppressing a smile. “I am.”

He stands up, awkward. “Miss Waldorf, I - I must beg your forgiveness.”

Her head tilts in confusion at his sudden formality.

“Jenny, um...she told me about your family’s circumstance. I’m very sorry.”

Blair’s face hardens and her shoulders broaden, drawing herself up in a way that’s almost imperceptible, but he notices. “For which part, exactly?”

He gulps, nervous, “I deeply apologize, Blair, for being so callous earlier. I didn’t know the weight of the burden you were carrying.”

“You don’t think less of me for it? Or my family?” She asks bitingly, defensive.

“Never,” he promises sincerely, and he sees her stance soften. “I think...I think love should be allowed, no matter the circumstance.”

“Oh,” she answers in a small voice. “Well, thank you, Humphrey.”

He nods. “So, was your father happy to hear your news?”

Her brow furrows in confusion.

“Of your engagement?” Dan’s proud of himself for not choking on the words. 

She continues to frown at him, puzzled. “You don’t know?”

It is Dan’s turn to be confused. “Know what?”

“I -” Blair takes a deep breath. “I told Chuck that I wouldn’t marry him.”

Dan can’t breathe. The hope expanding in his chest is keeping his lungs from taking air.

“I don’t expect anything, I just -” She breaks off, looking up at him, her dark eyes wide and soft, “I didn’t love him as I should.”

He steps forward, slowly, afraid that moving too quickly would cause her to disappear. After closing the remaining space between them, he takes her hand in both of his. “Blair,” his voice is so rough with emotion he almost doesn’t recognize it when he speaks, “you must know, Vanessa doesn’t have my heart anymore,” he brings her hand to his lips, then presses it to his chest. “I realized it belongs to someone else.”

She stares up at him, searching. But for as much as he claims to be a writer, he can’t make any more words come, so Dan leans forward, resting his forehead on hers, silently willing her to know what is in his heart. 

He hears her clear her throat. “Dan, aren’t you going to kiss me?” she asks him softly.

He pulls back, blinking at her in wonder. “You just said my name.”

Her laugh sets him alight. “Dan?”

“There, you just said it again.”

“Dan,” she says it a third time, before he finally cradles her face in his hands and presses his lips to hers. 

“Say it again,” he asks teasingly, and she laughs lightly before obliging. He kisses her over and over, and in between each press of lips, she whispers his name against his mouth. He kisses her for what feels like forever, each sound and sigh that escapes her making him feel like he’s falling apart at the seams, only to come back together again in her arms. 

They retreat to the gardens after that, hoping to avoid any prying questions from Jenny or stern looks from Dorota. They stroll together, Blair’s hand tucked into the crook of his arm. Dan wonders if she can tell how fast his heart is beating. 

She tells him about her father, and visiting him in Lyon. He’s purchased a chateau with a vineyard there, and has made it into quite the home. 

“At first I was angry with him,” she admits, “that he would put us in this position, but he’s so happy, I don’t have it in me to hold it against him.”

“I felt the same way after Mother died,” Dan answers, “It took me awhile, but I learned that...letting Lily become my family was not a betrayal of her.”

Blair smiles up at him, her face wide open and warm. She has an incredible way of making him feel understood without having to utter a word. 

“Just what were you writing, when I so rudely interrupted you?” she asks.

“A welcome interruption, I promise you,” he laughs. 

She raises her eyebrows, waiting for him to answer her question. 

“Oh, it’s just sentimental rubbish,” he dismisses it with a wave of his hand. “I doubt anyone would want to read it. Stories about domestic struggles and joys are hardly of any importance.”

“Maybe it only seems unimportant because people don’t write about them,” Blair suggests. 

He shakes his head, “Writing doesn’t confer importance; it reflects it.”

“I don’t think so, writing them will make them more important.”

Dan walks silently for a minute, considering her words.

She nudges him playfully in the side, “You know I’m right.”

Dan chuckles, slowing to a stop and turning to face her. “That I know too well,” he says lowly, before leaning down to kiss her. 

Dan would have been happy to spend the rest of eternity kissing Blair in the garden, but for the fact that Jenny came to interrupt them, squealing with joy.

Jenny’s discovery of them inevitably leads to Cece and Dorota laying down the firm law of courtship, insisting that someone be chaperoning the two of them at all times. Dan can’t help but find it ironic how closely they were watched for the remainder of the afternoon and evening, but when Blair was entertaining the suit of someone else, she and Dan were permitted to be alone in each others’ company all the time. 

Ultimately, he doesn’t terribly mind. If it means that he can court Blair like any other man in love might, he supposes he can endure the terrifying scrutiny of Dorota. 

Of course that doesn’t mean it is easy. Tonight, he is in his room at Cece’s, knowing full well that Blair is just down the hall. She’s here. She’s not engaged to someone else. And by some incomprehensible miracle, she wants him. 

He replays the day over in his mind, the look in her eyes when she told him she was free, her smile pressed against his, the warm weight of her in his arms—but he also cannot help but think of that day at Luxembourg.

It eats at him, the notion that she would think herself as some sort of consolation. It couldn’t be further from the truth. She was Blair. The reality of her was so much more than any childish daydream of love he could have conjured. He needed to make sure that she knew. Then, an idea takes hold of him. 

He goes over to his trunk, and digs through the books he’d carried with him across Europe until he finds the one he’s looking for. 

He moves quietly down the hall, taking care not to wake Jenny, or god forbid, Dorota, and leaves the book and its new inscription at Blair’s door.

> _Dearest,_
> 
> _Do you remember how we fought over this book? I say this not with a wish to rehash our arguments past (because we both know that I would lose), but when I tried to think of the words to write, to put pen to paper on how I adore you, as strange as it may seem, the unfortunate Jackal came to mind._
> 
> _Sidney Carton tells Lucie, “You have been the last dream of my soul.” But you, Blair Waldorf, are so much more than that to me. You have taught me how to live. You have taught my soul how to dream, how to enjoy everything the world has to offer. You have brought out this side of me I never thought existed._
> 
> _I realized before you, I didn’t truly know how to live. I was expected to be a certain kind of person. But the truth is, that person was someone I didn’t actually like that much. He didn’t laugh. He didn’t have fun. He didn’t fully participate in life._
> 
> _But once I met you again, on that fateful day on the Champs Elysees, things have been different. I have been different. You have allowed me to stop for a moment and breathe, and not to just be an onlooker who watches others live. The person I am with you is one I actually like. One who I am proud to be. It’s your love and your lightness that have changed me. For the better. I am going to live. And it is the first and last dream of my soul that you will be by my side every step of the way._
> 
> _Forever yours,_  
>  _DRH_

He’s far too keyed up to sleep after that. He tries to write, but his head is too jumbled to form any more coherent thoughts. He tries to read, but his mind keeps drifting down the hall, to the bedroom on the other side of the house. He stays awake, unable to sleep, and putters around his room until he hears a knock on his bedroom door. 

“Blair?” She’s standing before him, wrapped in her dressing gown, her hair loose around her shoulders. She’s so beautiful it stuns him breathless, all he can manage to do is stare. Blair stares back, silent, then suddenly hugs him tightly, burying her face in his chest, the book that was gripped in her hands falls with a thump to the floor. He can feel the fabric of his shirt start to dampen with tears. 

He is alarmed, but returns her embrace without a second thought. “Blair, was it—?” he starts to ask, nervous, “Did I say something wrong?”

She shakes her head and clutches closer to him, her hands fisting in the fabric at his back. “No one has ever written me anything so beautiful.”

He lets out a deep breath and holds her fast, and presses a kiss to her head. “I love you,” he murmurs into her hair, “you know that, right?”

He cannot see her face, since she’s still tucked into his chest, pressed close to him in a way that makes him ache with longing, but he swears that he feels her smile. “I do now.”

After an endless week of chaperoned conversations and stolen kisses, she takes him to meet her father in Lyon, and he gets down properly on one knee in the middle of the vineyard.

This time, she says yes.

* * *

The Humphreys await the letters as Cece had instructed, and when they arrive, it quickly becomes clear why they couldn’t relay all the news inside a telegram.

“ _Married?_ ” Vanessa all but shouts, entirely unable to conceal her shock. 

“So it says here,” Rufus confirms, staring down at his son’s handwriting, the letter laid flat on the kitchen table. He shakes his head, mystified, “And Jenny off on a new adventure, too. Who knew so much change could happen in Paris?”

Vanessa slumps back into her chair. “Not I, to be sure.”

“Did you know anything about this?” Rufus asks kindly, surveying Vanessa’s surprise for any signs of hurt. 

She shakes her head. “Nothing. I mean, Jenny had written to me about wanting this apprenticeship but...not the other thing.”

Rufus nods, still watching her carefully. 

Vanessa spurs herself into movement. “I’ll go to Rhinebeck, I’m sure Serena will want to hear the news - that is if she hasn’t received her own letter.”

She’s out the door before Rufus can respond. 

The walk to the Archibald home is a bit of a trek, but Vanessa is grateful for it, the exercise giving her time and space to sort through the thoughts clamoring around in her brain. She hadn’t known why Dan was returning, but a week ago, she had nearly talked herself into giving herself over, to changing the answer she had given him on this very walk two years ago. And now that the option was taken away she was - sad? Relieved? Both?

She’s still trying to figure out the answer when she arrives at Serena’s door, where she quickly discovers that Rhinebeck had received its own letter, this one from Blair. 

“Read it, I don’t mind,” Serena offers generously. 

It takes Vanessa a minute to recognize Blair’s hand, the sweetness and sentiment of the words don’t match the memory of the sharp-tongued girl in Vanessa’s mind. This is Blair without her armor on, she realizes, the romantic girl that for the longest time only Serena knew. 

> _Joy beyond measure, S! It has happened at last, and I am happier than I have ever been!_
> 
> _I realize that you must not have a clue of what it is I am writing—my apologies for starting in the middle of the story, darling. All this is to say: Daniel and I are now man and wife. I know this may seem sudden, but I hope to qualify all that has happened below._
> 
> _Dan had asked for my hand a few days prior, while we were visiting Papa in Lyon (all appropriately chaperoned, by Dorota, I assure you). We had intended to wait for our return to you all to be wed, but then another marvelous piece of news changed that plan. Indeed, I was already dashing to write a letter to you to tell of our engagement when this information came to us._
> 
> _Jenny, as you well know, has been working tirelessly in Paris under the tutelage of Madame Deceaux. And, being the talent that she is, was invited to apprentice herself on a permanent basis to the lady at her design house in New York City. Your dear cantankerous Grandmama had no interest in cutting her holiday short, but my Dan, being the responsible elder brother as he is, was duty bound to accompany Jenny back. This, of course, left us in a bit of a quandary. My love was reluctant to leave me, and I was loath to let him go. So, we decided together that the most elegant solution was to marry before we made the crossing._
> 
> _Oh, how I wish I could have had you with me S, and had you at my side for my day as I was with you for yours, but luckily we have our entire lives as married women ahead of us! I could go on for pages and pages, but we are soon due to depart, so I will just tell you to rest assured that the day itself was perfection. We made a small wedding party, with most of our dearest being across the ocean, but what a lovely consolation it was to be able to have Papa walk me down the aisle. (I am sure you will be amused to hear that Jenny insisted on standing as Best Man)._
> 
> _Oh, S, what a marvelous thing it is to be in love!_
> 
> _My husband is insisting that I finish this letter so that he might post it, and so I must. Give dear Daisy and Will a kiss for me, and I cannot wait to see you when we arrive._
> 
> _With love, your sister, both in law and in spirit,_
> 
> _BCH_

“Goodness,” Vanessa finally remarks, handing the letter back to Serena. “Well, if Dan is even half as happy as she appears to be, I would call him a lucky man indeed.”

Serena scans over the pages once more, and shakes her head in wonder. “She’s loved him for so long, you know. I cannot tell you how relieved I am that he finally came to his senses.”

Vanessa thinks of how deeply Dan loves, earnest and utterly without caution, and how he has truly found a partner who will requite him in kind. “Me too,” she answers, and means it. 

The two weeks following the arrival of the letters are full of tense anticipation. Lily bustles around both Rosewood and Waldorf House, endeavoring to make everything ready for her children’s return. Vanessa often shadows her, wanting to be of use, but she feels like an intruder in the halls of Waldorf House without Blair or even Dorota there. 

Eric, in anticipation of his siblings’ arrival, also comes home for a visit, and is overflowing with stories for Vanessa about his studies and life at Harvard - many of them including Jonathan, the grandson of his host, Mrs. Whitney. After all he’s been through, Vanessa’s heart is glad to see Eric so animated, so full of life. And, his company is a welcome distraction from her nerves. 

Late one afternoon, both Eric and Lily are busy at Serena’s house doting on the twins. Vanessa elects to stay behind, and take advantage of the afternoon silence to doze on the comfy old sofa in the attic. 

“Vanessa,” she hears a low voice murmur her name. “Vanessa,” it says again, more clearly. She knows that voice. “V, it’s me.”

Her eyes fly open, and there’s Dan. Her Dan, right in front of her. 

She jolts up and yanks him into a hug. She feels his laugh rumble in his chest. 

“You’re going to suffocate me, Abrams,” he whines. 

She just holds him tighter. “I missed you,” she chokes out, overcome with emotion. 

“I missed you, too,” he replies, in that painfully sincere way of his, and Vanessa knows it’s true. 

She pulls away to get a good look at him, his hair is longer now, curling over his ears and neck, and he has the faint shadow of a beard across his face, but she still sees a trace of the boy she knows so well. 

“So,” she begins, “actually married?”

He chuckles, self-conscious, “Well...” His hand comes up to rub the back of his neck, and she sees the afternoon sunlight reflect off the golden band on his finger. 

She gasps dramatically and grabs at his left hand. “Oh, Daniel Humphrey, what horrible thing will you do next?” she teases. 

He yanks his hand back. “I did it to please Blair.” 

She grins, seeing right through him. “Liar. She did it to please you, I’d bet anything.”

He laughs at that, before his expression turns serious. “Vanessa, I feel like I need to say something.”

“Oh, Dan,” she shakes her head, “there’s no need, truly.”

“Please?” he asks, so anxiously heartfelt, that she has no choice but to nod yes. “I love you, V, I will always love you, but the love I have for Blair...it’s different. Not more or less, just not the same. And you and I...We were always meant to be friends. And you, you knew it before I did, but when you tried to tell me I was such an _ass_ -”

“Daniel,” she interrupts him, “Stop. Talking.”

He sighs. “You know I’m not good at that.”

“I know,” she nods, then reaches over to take his hand. “I'm happy for you, truly.” 

He smiles softly, and squeezes her hand in return. “Thank you.”

She smiles back at him. “So, is Blair here too?”

“No, she was detained at the Archibalds. We stopped there first on our way from the station,” Dan pauses with a chuckle, “and there was no getting my wife out of Serena and Lily’s clutches.” His voice and lips both unconsciously turn up at the word wife, coloring the title like something sacred.

Vanessa studies Dan closely. In all her years of knowing him, of holding him in her heart, she has never seen him like this before, so settled, at ease. Her boy with the flickering eyes, tremulous smiles, and fidgeting hands was gone, replaced with the young man in front of her, wearing the love of his wife around his shoulders like self assurance.

“So tell me,” she continues, unable to resist teasing him more (she had years worth to make up for after all), “did Blair bother you all the way from Europe with her preening and bossing around?”

“Yes,” he nods, laughing sheepishly, “yes, but I like that.” 

They share a laugh before they hear a bustle of commotion downstairs, the party at the Archibald’s returned. 

“Shall we?” Vanessa asks. 

Dan nods and stands, offering his hand to her, “Friends?”

Vanessa blinks back tears and takes it, “Of course, dear boy.” He pulls her up, and together they rejoin their family below.

Having made amends with Dan, Vanessa feels a weight lifted from her shoulders, and feels light enough to try and take the advice Eric had given her on the beach, and find a new dream. 

She still has a fondness in her heart for theatre, and art, but the New York scene, though thrilling, had left her drained, and so she resolves to keep her art as a balm to her soul, but put herself to work in a calling that did not take her to such devastating lows. 

Vanessa spends much of her time at Rosewood thinking on it, what she would like to do next. Though she had initially done it in New York for the room and board, she had greatly enjoyed being a governess, and teaching Kitty and Mae. Their curiosity and love of learning were a magical thing to witness, and even though they were still very young, watching Daisy and Will discover their world gave her a similar joy. 

So, Vanessa begins to make inquiries. A letter from her former Headmistress Reuther informs her of Constance sadly closing its doors—apparently Jenny hadn’t been the only student to decide that she’d learn better at home. So, if Vanessa wishes to remain in Concord (she’s had enough wandering for the time being), her only avenue is to be a governess. But, surely there was more than one family in need of an educator, and several like the Abramses and Humphreys of long ago that couldn’t afford one. 

Vanessa’s hard at work in the attic, pondering all these things when Larissa calls her down to dinner. The whole clan was expected this evening; Rufus and Lily wanted to enjoy the company of all their children before Eric and Jenny must take off again. Vanessa wanted to enjoy their company, too, and—in her heart of hearts—she was dreading the day the youngest van der Humphreys would be gone. Because then it will be: Rufus and Lily, Serena and Nate, Blair and Dan, and Vanessa. Just Vanessa.

But she decides that particular pity party can wait until later. Right now, she’s _starving_.

She tears down the stairs, following her nose to the heavily laden dining table. “Oh finally, I’m _famished_ ,” she announces to no one in particular, snatching a roll off the table and shoving a piece of bread in her mouth. 

“Oh - uh, Vanessa, dear,” she hears Lily behind her, “you have a guest.”

She grunts and shakes her head, “Don’t know anyone.”

Then an unexpected voice touches her ears, “I’m sorry to intrude, but…”

Vanessa whirls around, and has to remember to swallow and breathe before she exclaims, with a disbelieving little laugh, “Oh it’s you!”

Olivia smiles at her, a little hesitantly. Vanessa was so caught up in the joy of seeing her that it hadn’t occurred to her that the seasoned actress might be nervous. “V, I hope it is all right. I got your address from Mrs. Nyquist.”

It’s at that point Dan and Blair arrive. “Who’s this? Who are you?” Dan asks curiously. 

The two women are entirely oblivious to him, their eyes stay locked on each other. “I don’t wish to intrude,” Olivia says, “I was just close by, and I thought I’d - but,” her eyes dart over Vanessa’s shoulder to the doorway, where Serena, Nate, Eric, and Jenny are now all clustered together, watching wide-eyed. “I should be going.” 

“No, no,” Lily protests. 

“Please stay,” Blair chimes in, laying down all her well-bred, Queen B charisma, “we have more than enough room.”

“Will someone please tell me who this is?” Dan asks again, and his wife hits him in the shoulder with a chiding “Shhh.”

“I don’t wish to be a burden,” Olivia protests.

“Oh, no, you’re not a burden at all,” Serena says emphatically, Eric nodding in agreement beside his sister. 

“Yes of course, please stay,” Vanessa says hopefully. 

“I’m Dan. Who are you?” Blair casts her eyes skyward. 

“I’m -” Olivia blinks over at Dan in confusion, like she’s just noticed him. “Olivia Burke.”

“She was at my boarding house in New York,” Vanessa explains. Dan’s eyebrows shoot up. 

Jenny steps forward to murmur in Vanessa’s ear. “Oh, V, she’s very pretty.”

Vanessa feels her face flood with heat. 

Olivia may not wish to impose, but she is forced to relent under the combined forceful hospitality of Lily, Serena, and Blair. She ends up seated at the table directly next to Vanessa, and Vanessa feels her presence keenly for the entire meal. She can also feel Blair’s eyes watching her carefully, especially every time she turns her head to look at Olivia, which is admittedly several times. 

There’s a bustle of happy chatter at the table, with all of the family swapping stories. Rufus and Lily, ever the happy hosts, direct most of their conversation to Olivia, and she bears their inquisitions admirably. 

“Do you intend to stay in New York?” Rufus asks their guest. 

“No, actually,” Olivia answers, “I’ve been offered a position with a troupe in Chicago. And, as I have nothing keeping me here,” she shrugs, “I thought I might go west. The theatre is exciting and new there, and they are...less particular about immigrants.”

Rufus nods understandingly, then suggests, “Perhaps I should go west.”

“You’re not an immigrant,” Lily mutters into her wineglass, “so perhaps you should stay home.” The whole family, including Olivia, laughs. 

Normally, on family dinner nights such as these, they adjourn to the less formal drawing room, but Olivia’s presence is all the fanfare Lily needs to pull out all the stops as a hostess. Which is why tonight, they gather in the parlor, where Rufus and Eric’s beloved grand pianoforte resides. 

“This is a lovely instrument,” Olivia says, “which one of you plays? Besides Mr. Humphrey, of course.” 

“We all do,” Jenny says, then adds with an eager grin, “but Eric is the best.”

It is all the invitation needed for the party to morph into an impromptu musicale. Rufus opens the festivities, and then the rest follow. Jenny had been correct: all the van der Humphrey siblings did play. Serena enjoyed it when she was a girl, but had never much been into the art of practicing, and so now she could only play exactly three pieces she learned in her youth: one Bach prelude, one Schubert etude, and one Chopin waltz—which she plays to the joy of her husband and Olivia and the good-natured groaning of everyone else. 

Jenny played well and took pride in being an excellent sight-reader, but much preferred to sing, with either her father or one of her brothers accompanying her. So, with the assistance of Eric, she performs one of her favorite Schumann, and Olivia greatly praises her mastery of the German. 

Dan was quite skilled, but often shied from playing for people, deferring to the expertise and talent of his father and brother. But tonight, Blair manages to coax him to the keys, and together they share a new composition that they had heard in Paris, and brought back a score as a gift to Rufus. Blair sings while reading the music over her husband’s shoulder. She has a lovely voice, sweet and clear, and makes the French poetry sound effortless--except for one instance, in which she sings a wrong note at the wrong time, breaking off into a fit of giggles. Dan vamps underneath her, insisting, “No, no keep going!” through his own laughter. Vanessa doesn’t think she’s ever seen Blair so carefree, so at ease with herself despite making a mistake. 

Eventually, Olivia sits down next to Eric, playing an old German melody while he improvises elaborate variations above her. Somehow, in the space of just one evening, Olivia had become a part of the family. 

But of course, the evening comes to an end all too quickly, and Olivia must depart, for she has a train to catch. 

Olivia takes her leave of the whole van der Humphrey-Archibald-Waldorf clan, each of them giving her a handshake, or a hug, or a kiss on the cheek goodbye. Until finally, there’s only Vanessa left. 

“If you ever come to Chicago,” Olivia offers, “I would love to see you.”

Vanessa smiles and nods, “I don’t know that I will, but thank you.”

Olivia nods, looking vaguely disappointed, and like she’s about to say something more, but only says, “Well, goodbye.”

“Goodbye,” Vanessa says warmly, watching her friend go, then closing the door behind her. 

She turns around to find the whole breadth of her family watching her, barely containing their knowing smiles. Blair has her hands pressed over her mouth, like she might burst into laughter at any second. 

“What? Why are you all looking at me like that?”

“What a wonderful person,” Rufus declares pointedly, “I hope she comes back. She would make a terrific friend for me.” 

“Ugh, Father,” Jenny exclaims, “She wasn’t here for _you_!”

“No?” he asks innocently. 

“V,” Jenny turns to Vanessa, “you _love_ her.”

“What?” Vanessa squeaks, “No, no I don’t!”

“Yes, you do! I am half as smart as you, but I can see it so plainly. You love her. Doesn’t she love her?” Jenny turns to her left, where Nate is standing. 

Nate nods sagely, “That’s a good instinct. You love her,” he confirms. Jenny whirls back to Vanessa, and triumphantly points to her brother-in-law as if to say _See?_

“Well that’s just -” Vanessa’s so caught off guard she cannot speak, “- ridiculous.”

“Oh come _on_ , V,” Blair bursts out, with Dan smirking knowingly over her shoulder, “I have never seen you so happy, what else is love?” She gasps, “You need to go after her. Dan, go prepare the horses, we can catch her before she gets on the train.” 

“I’m coming too,” Serena announces. 

“No,” Vanessa refuses, “I’m not going.”

“Yes you are,” Serena orders, “B is right.”

“Exactly!” Blair says smugly as the two of them go to fetch their cloaks from the next room.

“Never thought I’d prepare a carriage to help Vanessa Abrams chase down a lady,” Dan muses out loud. “I like it.”

“She’s _moving_. To _Chicago_.”

“Oh, that’s obviously fiction,” Blair dismisses Vanessa’s protest, shoving a cloak into the other woman’s arms.

“She was practically begging for a reason to stay,” Serena agrees. 

“But,” Vanessa is running out of reasons to object, “but it’s raining outside.”

“Oh that doesn’t matter!” Blair throws up her hands and then grabs Vanessa and steers her towards the stairs, “Will you come with me - I need to fix you.” Serena follows them up close behind. “Daniel Humphrey, will you stop standing there and prepare the horses, _please_? _Thank_ you!”

Fifteen minutes later, when the horses are ready and Vanessa is primped to Serena and Blair’s satisfaction, the three of them pile into the carriage for their mad dash to the train station. It feels like a scene right out of one of Vanessa and Dan’s old plays, the heroine on a mission to track down her love before it was too late. But rather than agonizing or fraught with fear, the suspense is full of joy, with these women who were good as her sisters offering encouragement and support, no matter what comes next. 

Once there, Blair all but shoves Vanessa out the door, with the mandate “Kiss her with love!” Vanessa shakes her head as she hears the shrieks of laughter behind her. 

She rushes into the station, looking all around her for the familiar dear face, but she finds none, until she hears: 

“V!”

Vanessa spins around, and there she is, a beam of light glowing against the falling of the rain. She rushes toward Olivia, meeting her under the shelter of the blonde’s umbrella. 

“I don’t want you to go,” Vanessa declares, “I want you to stay.”

“Really?”

Vanessa nods. “Really.”

“I will not leave if you don’t wish me to,” Olivia promises.

“No, no, I want you to stay.”

Olivia smiles in relief, it lights up her entire face. “But I -” her brow furrows, “I have nothing to offer you.”

“Neither have I!” Vanessa laughs, “It doesn’t matter.”

“I -” she breaks off, emotion coloring her voice, “My hands are empty.”

Vanessa cannot stop smiling. She shakes her head, and places her hands over Olivia’s, where they’re clutched around her umbrella handle. “They’re not empty,” she says confidently.

Olivia lets out a deep breath, and then surges forward. And then they’re kissing, and every part of Vanessa—even the parts that had always been at odds—comes together and hums with light. 

With her lips pressed to Olivia’s, Vanessa can’t help but think: _Oh, so this is how belonging feels._

The rest of the world falls away until it is only the two of them, holding each other close under the shelter of an umbrella in the rain.

The remainder of the summer passes in a happy routine. Olivia finds work on the local boards, and helps Serena and Nate with the twins in between performances. Daisy and Will take to her immediately, and she to them; their mischievous natures reminding her of her nephews back in Germany. 

Like Nate, Vanessa, and Blair before her, Olivia fits seamlessly into their little group, Vanessa’s love for her being all the Humphreys need to welcome her into the fold. 

Dan and Blair begin their married life in Waldorf House, and host regular gatherings about art, music, and literature, inspired by the ones they attended in Paris. Serena and Nate happily attend, chiming in when they have a particular positive opinion, but wisely let the others of the party hold their debates. Before Eric and Jenny take off to their respective callings in Cambridge and Manhattan, they perform their musical offerings to the pleasure of a captive audience. Olivia, Vanessa, Blair, and Dan, all give recitations of great fervor, which often result in a battle of the poets. To Vanessa, it feels like the Pickwick Club returned, especially on the night when Dan and Olivia debate Petrarch versus Heine for so long and with such passion Blair and Vanessa are forced to intervene. 

From Eric’s illness and subsequent recovery to Dan and Blair’s marriage to Olivia’s arrival, Vanessa would say that she’s had more than her fill of surprises, but evidently, the universe has seen it fit to disagree with her. 

“I thought she hated me,” Vanessa muses, stunned, as she and Dan walk the grounds of Amagansett, the great house that had once belonged to Celia Rhodes, that was now hers. 

The grand matriarch had passed away a few months after the newlyweds’ return. Dan and Jenny revealed that she had been unwell for some time and concealed it from the rest of the family, content to shuffle off the mortal coil from her luxurious home in Paris. Cece’s estate had made Lily and Rufus the richest couple in New England, and the rest of her grandchildren comfortably situated for life, including now, it would seem, Vanessa, her former outspoken companion. 

Dan hums thoughtfully, “Cece always loved those who belligerently speak their minds, and if that isn’t you then I don’t know what is.”

She shoves him playfully, and he laughs.

She stares back up at the grand old facade and considers the possibilities laid before her. “I think,” she begins, “I think I want to make it into a school.”

“A school?” he asks, a little perplexed. “Are you sure you don’t want to turn it into a theatre? Stage anything of your choosing? It would for sure turn the old lady over in her grave.”

She laughs, but shakes her head. “There hasn’t been a decent school for girls since Blair and I were in it, and now women’s colleges are opening all over. Daisy could come here. And maybe,” she nudges him repeatedly in the arm, “your daughter, one day.”

Dan ducks his head, smiling at the thought.

“See!” she laughs. “This should be a school,” she concludes resolutely. “Will you help me?”

He looks up at her and grins. “Always,” he promises. 

Vanessa returns his smile, then reaches up to ruffle his curls. 

In a turn of events that surprises no one, opening a school is especially complicated work, and takes an exorbitant amount of planning. Vanessa has never been very good at it, being methodical, but Blair certainly is, drawing up lists and drafting letters and asking all numbers of questions that Vanessa hasn’t had a chance to think of the answers to yet. 

When Vanessa tries to protest, Blair insists, “Please, V, use me while you can,” then adds, a knowing smirk giving way to uncontainable joy, “After all, I will be far too busy with other matters in a few months time.”

Vanessa gapes, all the fight gone out of her in a rush of shock and happiness, and her old rival-turned-friend smugly counts it as victory. 

Vanessa has also never been very good at consulting others, or leaning on them for support, but she knows that she can trust Blair and Dan, and now, Olivia too. 

But tonight, Vanessa is alone, hard at work in the Humphrey attic. It used to be Dan’s space of creation, but now he has his own household three miles away, with his very own study. He had been positively giddy showing it to Vanessa. 

“Look at all of these books!” he exclaimed, so eager that it had made both Vanessa and Blair laugh at him. 

“But,” he had continued with a conspiratorial wink to his wife, “there’s one book in particular I want to show you.”

He had reached into a box behind the desk (his desk, as Blair had reminded him), and produced a book bound in red cloth, and stamped on the cover in gilded letters: _The Plumfield Attic Society_ by Daniel R Humphrey. 

Blair had gleefully reported to Serena over tea the next day that Vanessa had cried, a slanderous accusation which she denied vehemently. 

Vanessa is incredibly proud of her dear friend, but is still far too competitive to let him have all the glory. Hence her evening up here in the attic, where she can sprawl out on the floorboards and feel the old inspiration of childhood flow through her. 

She’s made significant progress when she hears a knock, then spies a blonde head peeking up over the stairs. 

“I was able to get away early tonight,” Olivia explains, surveying the chaos of Vanessa’s work in progress. “Is now a good time?”

“Now is all there is,” Vanessa smiles and reaches out her hand, inviting. “Come in.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading!!
> 
> Notes about the music mentions (bc I'm me):   
> In my head during the little musicale, I hear Serena playing Chopin's [Waltz in A minor](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtQRpmaaiCo) (it is also one of the like 6 pieces my muscle memory still knows how to play, rip).   
> I imagine Jenny singing ["Widmung"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCmsrZy86Ok) by Schumann.   
> And the song Blair and Dan perform is ["Chanson triste"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cq06yWnd4BE) by Henri Duparc (Duparc was actively composing during the time in which Little Women was set, and France as a whole was starting to develop its own romantic classical music style separate from the Germans and Italians, which is really exciting to a classical music nerd like me!) Also, check out the [poetry](https://www.lieder.net/lieder/get_text.html?TextId=9771) if you like, it's very sexy.


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